Watch: Stop Trusting Your Colleagues Blindly, Evarist Bartolo Urges Ministers After Vitals-Steward Case
Cabinet members must learn to be more skeptical of their colleagues’ intentions in the wake of the Vitals-Steward saga, former minister Evarist Bartolo has urged.
“We all have lessons to learn from the Vitals-Steward story for the good of the country,” Bartolo – who spent nine years in Cabinet as Education Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister – said in Lovin Malta’s latest Saħħa u Sliem episode.
“Cabinet should be wholly respected and given all the necessary information and time to take decisions, and there shouldn’t be other parallel centres of power in government.”
‘The collective responsibility of Cabinet should come hand in hand with the responsibility of individual ministers over their sectors.”
“Cabinet members shouldn’t trust their colleagues blindly, they shouldn’t automatically assume they have good intentions, and they must properly verify the information given to them in an independent manner.”
Bartolo praised the Opposition, the courts and the media for their role in bringing the Vitals-Steward scandal to light, called on Parliament to “seriously scrutinise” government decisions, urged the police to take action “without fear or favour” and proposed better regulation on the relationship between politicians and businesses.
He urged the government to continue reforming Malta’s institutions to ensure stronger separation of power and better checks and balance, just as it did when it placed responsibility for judicial appointments in the hands of the President.
“No one in this country should have full control and be able to pull the institutions’ strings as it pleases them,” he said.
“Will we have the courage and do we love our country enough to seriously reflect on this case and learn lessons for the good of the nation?” he concluded.
After the courts annulled the Vitals-Steward hospital deal last week in the wake of a case filed by PN MP Adrian Delia, former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat insisted that his Cabinet (which included Bartolo) was involved at every stage of the concession process, arguing that this means it had “undergone legal scrutiny”.
Cover photo: Left: Former minister Evarist Bartolo, Right: Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat
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