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WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION WEDNESDAY • 27 MAY 2015 • ISSUE 417 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.00 EDITORIAL PAGE 10 Newspaper post Gonzi on Mater Dei: 'I would have never authorised such a blanket waiver' CONTINUES PAGE 6 MIRIAM DALLI LAWRENCE Gonzi "would have never author- ised" the blanket waiver which the Foundation for Medical Services had agreed to in 2009 with Swedish subcontractors Skanska. Moreover, the former Nationalist prime min- ister said that the Project Closure Agreement had not been presented to the Cabinet before it was signed. According to the government, the controver- sial clause included in the last page of the 2009 Project Closure Agreement will make it hard for the government to seek redress or to hold anyone responsible for negligence. Health Minister Konrad Mizzi said that the previous Nationalist administration should come forward "to apologise" and explain why Skanska and Maltese contractors responsible for the construction of Mater Dei Hospital had been exonerated from any claims that might arise. Contacted by MaltaToday, the former prime minister said: "As far as I can recall, as I am travelling out of Malta at the moment, and af- ter consulting some of my Cabinet colleagues, this so-called 'waiver clause' was never put to Cabinet for approval." In separate comments, former finance minis- ter Tonio Fenech told MaltaToday that he went through his Cabinet memos dating 2008, 2009 and mid-2010 and no reference to the Project Closure Agreement was found. Gozo whistleblower testifies in charges against former minister's husband Whistleblower reveals 70 false invoices, says Debono paid him €20,000 in cash MATTHEW AGIUS OPPOSITION leader Simon Busuttil would have been already aware that elec- tion defeat was a foregone conclusion in early 2013: in court yesterday, whistle- blower Joseph Cauchi told the court that when he met Busuttil to report to him that Anthony Debono had not paid him for works he carried out at his request, the newly-elected PN leader reportedly asked him why he did not stop the works when it appeared that the Nationalists were not about to be re-elected. Gozitan contractor Joseph Cauchi, known as is-Sansun, was describing a meeting about unpaid invoices he had held with Busuttil about the now noto- rious works-for-votes arrangement in Gozo. PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD 'Simon Busuttil asked why I carried out works when PN was going to lose election anyway' Whistleblower Joseph Cauchi 'is-Sansun' testified in court for the first time in the compilation of evidence against Anthony Debono, the former Gozo minister's husband CONTINUES PAGE 2