“Who do you think you’re fooling?”: shadow health minister to the government, this morning

Claudette Buttigieg, the shadow minister for health, was scathing in parliament this morning on the subject of the hospital privatisation deals which Konrad Mizzi signed with a company owned by unknown individuals protected by nominees in the British Virgin Islands.

She’s right. Mizzi may well have handed the hospitals over to a company in which he and the other two members of the triad – along with John Dalli, who was inexplicably brought in before the deal as the Prime Minister’s “health and hospitals consultant” – hold shares.

What an extraordinary situation – that Malta doesn’t know who owns the company that is running some of its state hospitals. I have no doubt that the Prime Minister, his chief of staff, Konrad Mizzi and John Dalli know who owns Bluestone Situation Four Ltd, registered in the British Virgin Islands, but they know it purely on a private basis and not at official government level.

This means that the people who succeed them to government, and this includes future Labour governments over the next 30 years duration of the contract, will be clueless as to the identity of the individuals who have ultimate control over Malta’s state hospitals, and with whom transactions are made.

They could be crooks, they could be international criminals, they could be wanted men, they could be shady individuals from suspect jurisdictions, and they could be Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri, Joseph Muscat and John Dalli (or his daughters).