This is an ‘I told you so’ moment if ever there was one (but I’ll be gracious)

Ram Tumuluri has been forced to admit that his outfit – whoever they are – met the Maltese government on the subject of running Malta’s public hospitals before the tender was out. The story is in the Times of Malta and The Malta Independent today.

In March last year, I reported that the government already had its investor for the hospitals, Oxley Capital Group. I described how Ram Tumuluri, presenting himself as the face of Oxley, had held meetings with Maltese medical suppliers, at the offices of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the previous January (2015), gave them his card and told them that his company – Oxley (which is owned by Mark Pawley) – already had an agreement with the Maltese government to run the hospitals.

I knew my information was 100% correct not only because of the cast-iron reliability of the people who were invited to those meetings at PriceWaterhouseCoopers only to be confronted with this disturbing information, but also because, when I texted the government head of communications, Kurt Farrugia, asking him to confirm or deny that the government had reached an agreement with Oxley before the tender was out, he didn’t reply at all. There was a blank wall of silence. He usually replies punctiliously and very politely.

One point needs to be made now: the government was NOT in talks with Vitals back then quite simply because Vitals did not exist. It was in talks with Oxley as represented by Ram Tumuluri.