Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/984659
3 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 20 MAY 2018 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 However, a clear relation- ship exists between Mansotra's company and Shaukat Ali, one of the prime movers of the Vi- tals Global Healthcare compa- ny that secured a concession to run three state hospitals. It turns out that Shaukat Ali's company Eurasia was involved in a share transfer with Man- sotra's Planetcore Malta, which is ultimately owned by the same offshore company in the Brit- ish Virgin Islands that owns Sohum Wellness. The relation- ship is suggestive of the proxim- ity Shaukat Ali has to a business group which, much like Vitals Global Healthcare before it, has had relatively uncomplicated passage to secure a prime Malta location to develop a business venture. In November 2014, Mansotra personally deposited an initial €23,000 capital to set up the Malta company "Strategic Man- agement Investments Limited", which a month later changed its name to Planetcore Malta. Planetcore Malta and Sohum Wellness are ultimately owned by a British Virgin Islands com- pany called Strategic Manage- ment Investment Inc. In May 2015, Planetcore gave notice that €20,000 of its share capital held in the name of Shaukat Ali's consultancy firm Eurasia Limited had been trans- ferred to Strategic Management Investment Inc, so that Planet- core becomes a single member company through its acquisi- tion by Strategic Management Investment Inc. Eventually, Mansotra's So- hum Wellness became the sole, and successful bidder to take over lower St Elmo – popularly known as the location for the filming of the 1978 prison dra- ma Midnight Express – to turn into a luxury spa hotel. The Grand Harbour Regener- ation Corporation turned down a freedom of information re- quest from MaltaToday to pro- vide the detailed bid proposal by Sohum Wellness as well as details of the meetings carried out with the company and its architect. The GHRC however provided this newspaper with the Request for Proposals docu- ment. The company is still in line to develop the spa hotel. However an experts mission from UN- ESCO's World Heritage Centre has since taken the project back to the drawing board. The experts, whose recom- mendations are legally binding, said turning the St Elmo parade ground into a laguna with a di- rect access through to the sea could not be allowed. A source privy to the project said that there was "no way" that Fort St Elmo, which is part and parcel of Valletta as a World Heritage Site, could be altered in this manner. A final report was submitted by UN- ESCO's World Heritage Centre requesting a heritage impact as- sessment on the hotel proposal. "UNESCO is not against certain developments that can redefine the use of heritage sites, but it carries out necessary evalua- tions into whether such pro- jects will negatively impinge on the overall universal value of the World Heritage site." Shaukat Ali, a Pakistani busi- nessman who is now a Maltese citizen, has been described by hospital owner Josie Muscat as being "well-connected to Cas- tille" and the Labour govern- ment. Shaukat Ali presented himself as a middleman for American doctor Irfan Iqbal in 2015 to acquire Muscat's St James Hos- pital. Shaukat Ali had then already set up a joint company with Bluestone Investments, a Malta company of investors that in 2015 would secure the public- private partnership for the running of the St Luke's, Karin Grech and Gozo hospitals – the now defunct Vitals Global Healthcare company. Shaukat Ali and Ram Tumu- luri, the Canadian chief execu- tive who ran Vitals before the company was sold off to Stew- ard Healthcare in 2017, had met Muscat and during meetings boasted of being close to then health minister Konrad Mizzi, with whom he had long meet- ings "at Auberge de Castille and at his home". "Ram [Tumuluri] boasted in front of me that apart from the concession to run the pub- lic hospitals, he also wanted to manage the private sector and this is why he was interested in Capua," Muscat says. This was at a time when the government tender was still being adjudi- cated. And while the government was saying that the public hos- pitals concession was going to be for 30 years, Muscat insists that Tumuluri always spoke of a 99-year concession. "It did not make sense to have a conces- sion for just 30 years, Ram used to tell me while boasting on the progress in talks between VGH and Konrad Mizzi." VGH sold its concession after just 21 months, having been unable to secure the capital to move forward the three hos- pitals' operation, which are now in the hands of American healthcare giant Steward. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt 'No way' UNESCO would allow laguna in St Elmo Indian businessman Sanjeev Mansotra has a business relationship with Shaukat Ali, the 'mystery' middleman involved in the Vitals Global Healthcare deal