The Vitals-Steward case was concluded yesterday when the court rejected an appeal against a landmark decision that fraud was found at all three stages of the deal process.

However, assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had reported on the fraudulent deal with suspicion eight years ago, in 2015. 

On 20th March, 2015 just after 1am Caruana Galizia published ‘The government already has its investor for Gozo hospital: Oxley Capital Group’ on her popular blog Running Commentary.

“In 2015, Malta Government selected Vitals Global Healthcare, a new company with no track record in business or healthcare and with an opaque ownership structure, as the ‘winning bidder’ to run three public hospitals. US company Steward Healthcare took over the dealt in November 2018, buying out Vital and its contracts,” the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation wrote on social media.

“Daphne Caruana Galizia first reported the fraudulent deal on 20th March 2015, when Vitals did not yet exist.  Malta government was not in talks with Vitals back then because Vitals did not exist. It was in talks with Oxley Capital as represented by Sri Ram Tumuluri.”

Caruana Galizia wrote that executives from Oxley Capital were in Malta in January 2015 for meetings. They were represented on the island by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“The agreement is that Oxley Capital Group – which is not involved in hospitals or medical care, but is a private investment firm – will put up the money for the refurbishment of Gozo General and the building of a new wing.”

“The management of the hospital will then devolve to Barts.”

She went on to say that she did not have information about how the financial trlation between the three parties – Maltese government, Oxley Capital, and Barts – will work.

“Who is paying whom to do what? Given that Oxley Capital is an investment company, what are the terms under which it will recoup its investment and make a profit? Is it actually going to invest in the project, or is it just going to finance it (lending the government the money to do the work, so to speak, which the government will then have to pay back with interest)?”

“Given that a deal has been struck already, any call for expressions of interest, for this particular hospital at least, would be obscene – the gas-fired power station all over again, making companies jump through hoops and deadlines while wasting money and man-hours to prepare documents pointlessly because they are led to think they are contenders when they can’t be because there is a sole contender who has been chosen ahead of the game,” she concluded.

Caruana Galizia’s information was verified externally the following year – that  Ram Tumuluri’s “outfit” met the Maltese government on the subject of running  Malta’s public hospitals before the tender was out.

This occurred before the Vitals company was created later that year and was selected to run the three hospitals. Steward Healthcare then bought out Vitals and its contracts, taking over the deal in November 2018.

The court found that collusion on the deal began at the start – before the contract was signed – and continued to when it was negotiated and when Steward took over.

The judge ruled that the St Luke’s, Karin Grech and Gozo General Hospitals be returned to the government.

Since the court rejected the appeal by Steward, the Opposition Party began urging that the government return the €400 million of tax-payers’ money back to the public.

A protest this Sunday will be staged for this very cause.

Do you think that the government should return the€400,000 million?