2023: The year that saw end of hospitals deal, and decision to close Air Malta

There were some major controversies, decisions and announcements made in Malta this past year.

It was a year where the country continued to battle with inflation, a year where politicians began throwing their hats into the race for the 2024 MEP and local council elections, but there were six local issues in particular that really left their mark.

One of the biggest local news stories, if not the biggest, was the Court’s decision to annul a major government deal.

On 24 February, the court passed judgement on the government’s deal with a private sector company over three of the country’s hospitals, annulling the government’s deal with the concessionaire, Steward Health Care.

The case had been filed back in 2018 by Adrian Delia, when he was Opposition leader. Delia had filed the court case in a bid to cancel the 99-year emphyteutical concession agreement awarded to Vitals Global Healthcare and later Steward Health Care. The three hospitals in question were the Gozo General Hospital, Karin Grech Hospital and St Luke’s Hospital.

Steward Health Care appealed the case, but the appeal was dismissed by the Court in October, although an amendment to the February judgement was made for the costs of the case to be shared by the Maltese government and Steward Health Care, and not borne by Steward Health Care alone. While the original court judgement had mentioned fraud, the judges on the Court of Appeal decision mentioned collusion. The Court of Appeal concluded that the granting of the concession was not the result of deceit perpetrated by one of the parties but of collusion between both parties in the deal.

The Opposition has been pushing for the government to get back the €400m that it said was stolen from the people. The government, meanwhile, had denied that government paid the concessionaire this amount without getting anything in return, mentioning that services were provided to patients.

But Delia, in an interview with this newsroom, said: “For a while the government was saying that the €400m included the wages. The three Auditor General’s reports are part of the judgment. A section of one of those reports says ‘over the period 2016-2021 the government paid the concessionaire €267m’ and then said ‘salaries of [human] resources made available to the concessionaire by the government during this period accounted for a further disbursement of €188m’. If you get that €267m and add the two budgets following that, around €70 and €80m, that’s the €400m plus,” he said. Delia added that the Auditor General is saying that the €188m was over and above.

The government has also said that proceedings are under way before an international tribunal. Prime Minister Robert Abela had said in Parliament that if it results that Vitals Global Healthcare or their successors Steward had received money in exchange for services or investments which were not fulfilled, then the government wants to get that money back.

Meanwhile, a magisterial inquiry into the hospitals’ deal is ongoing, but the Nationalist Party has criticised the Commissioner of Police for not conducting a separate investigation.

The PN had filed a judicial protest against the Police Commissioner, Attorney General and State Advocate, in November, calling on them to take action following the decision by the Court of Appeals. In counter-protests replying to the judicial protest filed by the PN, the State Advocate, who is the chief legal advisor to the government, argued that he had already done all he could by acting upon the government’s instructions in arbitration proceedings between Steward Health Care and the government. In a separate counter protest, the Attorney General and the Police Commissioner jointly argued that the functions of their respective offices were clearly defined by law and did not allow them to take the kind of action that the PN requested. It was argued that the AG, as the state’s chief prosecutor, could not institute civil proceedings to claim damages. It also read that the Police Commissioner’s role was to enforce criminal law and not to file civil proceedings, and that the police were assisting the magistrate in the magisterial inquiry.

But the PN accused the three of abdicating from their constitutional duties.

In December, the PN then proceeded to file a court case against the State Advocate for not taking any action to recover the hospitals’ deal funds. Opposition leader Bernard Grech and Nationalist MP Delia are also arguing that the State Advocate is duty-bound to take action against present and past government officials involved in the deal.

In the counter-reply, the State Advocate accused the Opposition leader and Delia of trying to use the Maltese courts to claim merit for something the government is already taking action on. “The government opened proceedings in front of the International Chamber of Commerce last April and the timeline indicates the case is expected to be determined by the end of 2025,” the State Advocate had said.

 

Closing down of Air Malta, and the setting up of a new national airline

Air Malta, the country’s national airline, had been struggling for many years and the announcement that it is to close in 2024, to be replaced by a new national airline, did not come as a surprise to some.

The government had made the announcement on 2 October, after it concluded talks with the European Commission that had been going on for around 30 months.

Originally, the government had gone to the Commission asking for permission to inject funds into the airline, however that option was not accepted. Instead, the government moved towards closing down the airline and opening up a new one instead.

Prime Minister Robert Abela and Finance Minister Clyde Caruana had said in a news conference that the new company will have the same number of aircraft – eight – that Air Malta currently has, and that while the number of routes will be reduced, the number of passengers that it will carry will be equivalent to the amount Air Malta carried in 2019. The new airline, which will be called KM Malta Airlines, will start flying on 31 March, and Air Malta will operate until then.

Among the announcements made on that day, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister said that €350m will be injected into the new airline – €50m of this would be working capital, while €300m would be in the form of assets. Caruana has previously said that former politicians from both administrations over the years have “used and abused” Air Malta for their own benefit. He had said that a company which was meant to make profit needed responsible decisions to be made, but over the years, all else happened but that.

 

Disability benefits racket

In September, The Times of Malta published an article saying that a former Labour MP, Silvio Grixti, who is a doctor, had been implicated in a racket to allegedly help people receive monthly disability benefits they were not entitled to. Grixti had resigned from Parliament in December 2021, shortly after being detained and questioned by police.

The news story read that some of the people who were introduced into the racket had told police they had been referred to the former MP by a minister as well as Customer Care officials from the Office of the Prime Minister, among others. It also quoted sources as saying that the racket became so renowned that some told the police they had obtained false certificates from other people. “A spokesman for the PM’s office denied that any Customer Care officials had ever suggested that any disability claimant or medical practitioner commit any irregularity, and there was no evidence that Customer Care employees were aware of these ‘alleged irregularities’,” the report read.

Following the news in September, NGO Repubblika alleged that the government and Labour Party officials are systematically using public funds to buy votes. The Nationalist Party had described the benefits fraud racket as a new low “of institutionalised corruption”.

The police had, prior to the news story, been arraigning claimants who benefitted from the racket for months, it was reported, with many admitting to the charges and agreeing to return the amounts, receiving a suspended sentence.

The Social Policy Ministry said in a statement in September that 141 cases of Severe Disability Assistance were terminated and over €2m needed to be recovered, denying that it had not taken action against the benefits fraud. “The Income Support and Compliance Division, within this Ministry, in 2022 had passed on information to the police. This happened after this division within this ministry found a number of applications in which there was suspicion of alleged fraud or falsification of a number of medical documents,” it had said.

But concerns remained as to why no action had been taken against the “big fish” in the scandal. Repubblika for instance, had said that the “big fish” must also pay the consequences of their behaviour. Prime Minister Abela had said, on 10 September, that the “big fish” in the benefit fraud will not be given preferential treatment.

But the PN still took aim at Abela. Bernard Grech, in a protest outside of Parliament, had said that the “big fish” were being protected.

On 7 November, Grixti spoke out on social media for the first time since being connected to the racket, questioning Health Minister Chris Fearne as to why allegations in the past that medical certificates had been abused of were not investigated by police “as if everything had been forgiven”. He was reportedly questioned by the police for a second time in November.

Responding to a Parliamentary Question in November, Falzon said that the authorities had recouped just under €627,000 in benefits payments.

 

Public inquiry and a U-turn

A public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia was launched in 2023, after family members had mounted a campaign for it to be established.

Sofia died at a building site on 3 December 2022, aged just 20, when the three-storey structure he had been on collapsed during construction works.

Sofia’s mother Isabelle Bonnici fronted calls for a public inquiry, but the request was, for quite a while, denied by the government, which instead wanted to wait for the magisterial inquiry to conclude.

As time went on, pressure for a public inquiry to launch mounted. The Nationalist Party had eventually filed a motion in Parliament calling for a public inquiry, but PL MPs instead amended the motion to urge a speedy conclusion to the magisterial inquiry, removing reference to a public inquiry. This happened despite Sofia’s mother having been outside Parliament pleading with MPs to “vote with their conscience”. She also had at the time managed to get around 20,000 signatures in a petition calling for a public inquiry.

A vigil was planned for a few days later in July outside Castille, the Prime Minister’s Office. Pressure continued to mount and, just before the vigil, Abela announced a U-turn which he claimed was prompted by a renewed extension in the magisterial inquiry on the case, arguing that it was taking too long, and said that a public inquiry would take place. Thousands still turned up outside Castille. At the vigil, Sofia’s mother had appealed for the crowd to remain non-political and thanked both the prime minister for accepting to hold a public inquiry and Opposition leader Grech who had fronted the campaign in Parliament.

After the vigil ended and those present began dispersing, Abela exited from the front of Castille, but was jeered by the crowds. Sofia’s mother had distanced the vigil held for her son from the commotion that occurred when the prime minister exited Castille. Grech had accused Abela of “insensitive behaviour” by leaving Castille and walking into the crowds, saying that he would not be allowed to break the national unity. In the days that followed, Abela played defence following the criticism he received for not having launched the public inquiry when it was first requested, and said that he had never excluded the possibility of further investigations, as well as a public inquiry, into Jean Paul Sofia’s death, provided that the magisterial one would have been completed first.

The public inquiry then began and heard testimony from various individuals, including past and present Building and Construction Authority officials as well as the head of the Malta Developers Association, among others. Evidence was closed and the board is expected to hand over its report to the prime minister in the first quarter of 2024.

The Magisterial inquiry into Sofia’s death closed on the 21st of July. A few days later, five people were charged with the involuntary homicide of Jean Paul Sofia, and are pleading not guilty.

 

Driving test scandal

While the driving test scandal had made headlines in 2022, it ramped up in 2023 with the leak of WhatsApp chats.

In August 2022, three Transport Malta officials were accused in court. Transport Malta director for the Land Transport Directorate Clint Mansueto, former Żebbuġ Labour councillor Philip Edrick Zammit and Raul Antonio Pace pleaded not guilty to charges relating to corruption and bribery in relation to driving tests.

An article published in The Sunday Times of Malta read that former Transport Minister Ian Borg and other government officials piled pressure on Transport Malta’s director of licensing Mansueto to “help” candidates at different stages of the licensing process.

But Prime Minister Abela brushed off the revelations, calling it a “recycled story that began two years ago through an investigation that was started by the authorities”. The police, he said, conducted their work and their investigations, and that the courts will now be the ones to decide over what, allegedly, happened irregularly.

Abela also defended Borg and customer care officials. Abela said that each day people contact him about their medical, educational needs and needs for their children, “things that we can guide people on. Are we saying that I should take a position not to answer my phone?,” he asked, while saying that customer care officials were doing their job to help people. He said that it “clearly seems” that Minister Borg was “doing this work that is intrinsically related to part of his functions. Am I to tell him to stop doing that work? I would tell him to keep on as he is in international politics”, he said. He said his only disappointment “is that there are people in our Customer Care departments who can push more”. He told them to push more to help people. He said that their political adversaries want them not to help people, but he said that PN MPs ask him for help on a number of things and where it is legitimate they are supported.

Minister Borg said he always advised the authority to operate within the parameters of the law, while also saying “at a time when many accuse politicians of being cut off from the people, I am proud to always have been, and am still, accessible to everyone. Go through my messages with Transport Malta, and what do they show? I listen to people’s complaints and work on them”.

There were calls made for Borg’s resignation after the story broke.

Opposition leader Grech said that votes are more important than life itself for the government. Grech said that not only has Prime Minister Abela failed to ensure correctness, security and honesty, but in the meantime has also failed the institutions of the country.

 

Whatsapp chats and a resignation from a political party

WhatsApp chats between Member of Parliament Rosianne Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech were leaked in 2023, having been published by Mark Camilleri.

The leak involved over 2,000 WhatsApp messages between Cutajar and Fenech, dated between June and September 2019. Fenech was, a couple of months later in November 2019, arrested over the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The messages between the MP and Fenech included details of Cutajar’s annoyance at not being included in Joseph Muscat’s Cabinet and of her wanting to “pig out” like her other colleagues by taking on a consultancy job. They were published by author Mark Camilleri on the eve of a court sitting in a libel case which Cutajar had instituted against Camilleri himself.

A couple of weeks later, in April, Cutajar resigned from the Labour Party. In her email to Prime Minister Abela, Cutajar gave the following as her reason: “I am taking this decision with serenity, but with a heavy heart because the Labour Party has been a family to me for the last 13 years (…) I will be taking more time to take care of my health, my new family and to progress further on a professional level.” The decision came only minutes before the scheduled start of a party executive meeting, which was reportedly expected to see Cutajar’s future being discussed.

Posting on Facebook on the day of her resignation, Cutajar said that she had carried political responsibility two years prior when she had resigned as Parliamentary Secretary “even though I had not committed any illegality.” She went on to say that she was the subject of a ‘vindictive’ attack two weeks earlier where someone had breached a court order. She said that suddenly, after insistence by some, pressure began being placed on her to carry political responsibility for a second time, and that she did not want to be a burden for anyone. That is why, she said, she would no longer remain part of the PL Parliamentary Group.

Cutajar remains on as an independent MP.