Very little has been discussed about Mario Vella, the Chairman of Malta Enterprise and the entity that coordinated and administered the sale of Malta’s hospitals to Vitals at the behest of the government. Malta Enterprise was involved from the very beginning in this fraudulent deal and kept coordinating with the hospitals’ recipients to ensure the contract’s execution after the deal was signed. Apparently, Joseph Muscat was so adamant to make sure that Malta Enterprise would see the deal go through that Stewards Malta and Malta Enterprise were housed in the same building in Saint Luke’s.
More specifically, thanks to the court’s judgment we learn that Mario Vella was involved in the transfer of the land to Steward in Gozo for the construction of a new hospital and in 2015 gave a presentation on the project to Chris Fearne, (back then he was Junior Minister of Health). Fearne claims that Mario Vella never showed him the Memorandum of Agreement signed with Vitals. Mario Vella was later appointed head of Malta’s Central Bank.
There’s a very good reason why Joseph Muscat trusted Mario Vella and that’s because they go way back as friends. In fact, Mario Vella was Joseph Muscat’s Phd tutor. He was a member of the Partit Kommunista Malti and studied at an East German University before joining the Labour administration of the 1980s.
Yet, my sources who worked at Malta Enterprise tell me that the government preferred to delegate the coordination of the Vitals deal to Mario Galea who was then Chief Operations Office of Malta Enterprise rather than delegating the work to the Chairman. Apparently, Mario Vella had some disagreements with Joseph Muscat over the Vitals deals so Muscat then delegated the coordination of this fraud to Mario Galea who was eventually appointed Chairman of Malta Enterprise.
Still, this doesn’t excuse in any way Mario Vella’s actions and in fact, if Mario Vella knew that the deals were wrong but kept his position at Malta Enterprise, he is as guilty as Mario Galea and – I believe that is what actually happened. Mario Vella knew that Muscat was into a fraud, but fearing he would end up without a job, Vella went along with it whilst opposing it mildly and diplomatically, until he fucked off to the Central Bank as he washed his hands completely.
This is a good time for Mario Vella to speak up and give explanations to the people, apart from giving explanations to the police in an interrogation room.
YEs, I remember him taking me out to eat at Kalkara with the Dean of the BArt’s medical school and when I challenged this Dean about why they were coming to Malta and the fact that this was done hoodwinking the University – he said ( first seriously in MAltese) – to paraphrase ” ahjar tieqaf issa” and then smiled and pretended it was a joke. ONe of the snakes in the snake pit, undermining our University ( with the Bleeding Gingernut) and damaging the education of MAlta’s doctors