‘Labour thought they could sail on with impunity’
Labour MPs are slowly discovering that switching from Joseph Muscat to Robert Abela was not enough to wash away the party’s wrongdoing, Bernard Grech said yesterday.
“Labour thought it could just switch captains and continue to act with impunity. They say so openly, in parliament: they jeer by saying ‘we won by 40,000 [votes],” Grech said.
“But those who are part of the problem cannot help solve it. And those who made pacts are compromised by them,” the Nationalist Party leader said in an interview on party station NET.
Grech was speaking one day after Chris Fearne resigned from the government. Fearne is among two dozen people to be charged with crimes in connection with the deal to privatise three station hospitals.
Others charged include Muscat, who is to be charged with bribery and corruption, as well as former minister Konrad Mizzi, former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri and Central Bank Governor Edward Scicluna.
“We won the hospitals back,” Grech said yesterday. “Now we are working to get back the money they took.”
He was referring to a court case the PN has filed seeking repayment of money disbursed to Steward Health Care, which took over the concession from the original tender winners, Vitals Global Healthcare.
Grech said he appreciated the president speaking out to warn against overt criticism of the judiciary and spoke critically of the government’s continued dismissal of the ongoing crisis.
“They rob us, and continue to lie to the very end,” the PN leader said. “People voted for Labour because they wanted a better Malta. Now they are changing their minds.”