Yesterday, Prime Minister Robert Abela gave a very bizarre press conference bragging that his government has made a successful coup for Malta’s interests, announcing a victory over a case presented at the International Court of Arbitration run by the International Chamber of Commerce. The Prime Minister announced that the tribunal decided that Steward Healthcare gave the Maltese government fair value over its service and concluded that the government needs to pay Steward Healthcare up to €5 million.
The Prime Minister praised the tribunal and said that the case was overseen by the big experts and whatnot. The Prime Minister also thanked the Justice Minister and State Advocate for bringing this result.
I am slightly shocked that the Prime Minister would make such a fraudulent and dishonest statement assuming that no one will point out the obvious in this charade. The Prime Minister had already attacked the Judiciary for investigating Joseph Muscat and he is making sure that his predecessor is protected. But what is aggravating here is that the Prime Minister is blatantly working against Malta’s interests and he is also lying in our faces.
The International Tribunal of Arbitrage is a kangaroo court which has no legal authority, its judgements are not biding, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Steward Health Care case. It is insane, stupid and outright treacherous for the Maltese government to take a case against a foreign company which defrauded the same government to a tribunal run by an international private lobby. This level of treachery by the Labour government is not only unprecedented, it is also criminal and massively undermines whatever the Labour Party supposedly stands for.
This is not the legal course that the Maltese government should have taken. Following the decisions by the local Courts declaring the contracts with Vitals and Steward’s Health Care as fraudulent, the Maltese government had plenty of legal leverage to make claims in US courts against Steward. The government didn’t do this. Steward Health Care has filed for bankruptcy in the US. The Maltese government had the option to make legal claims against Steward Health Care to recuperate its lost funds, but it failed to do so repeatedly.
The Prime Minister has lied to the public all along over the Steward Health Care and is manipulating information and the course of justice. Once again, what is aggravating here is that the government is deliberately and explicitly working against our interests, and in favour of a foreign and bankrupt company which committed extensive fraud and financial misconduct, even against our own government.
The Labour government is behaving like a petty criminal organisation in a Latin American banana republic. This is all so inappropriate and embarrassing.
You can watch the full press conference here.
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Historian and Publisher
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