Erol Cutajar
PN candidate · Partit Nazzjonalista
- True 3 50%
- Mostly true 1 17%
- + Context 0 0%
- Mixed opinion 1 17%
- Unproven 0 0%
- Misleading 1 17%
- Unlikely 0 0%
- False 0 0%
Confirmed timeline. (1) 2023: PN proposed new mental-health hospital near Mater Dei. (2) Health Minister Chris Fearne publicly committed government to building one by 2025. (3) Jan 2024 cabinet reshuffle; March 2024 successor Joe Etienne Abela announced scaled-back '110-bed ambitious project for mental health care at Mater Dei' — ward, not hospital. (4) Early 2026: PM Robert Abela announced contract about to be signed for a new acute mental-health hospital on the Mater Dei site. Twettiq tal-Baġit 2022-2025 contains no implementation record of the acute hospital across all four years. The two-U-turn framing matches the documented record.
Documentary fact. November 2024: Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela told parliament that cancer-medicine financing would transfer from the Malta Community Chest Fund (MCCF) to the Health Ministry within 12 months. Twettiq tal-Baġit 2024 and 2025 targeted searches for 'MCCF', 'Malta Community Chest Fund' and 'finanzjament tal-mediċini tal-kanċer' return ZERO results — the commitment is not in the official implementation register. The Shift News (Jan 2026) reported the unkept promise. President Spiteri Debono confirmed late-2024 that MCCF cancer expenses had reached €22M in 2024 alone — MCCF still carrying the financing.
Mixed record. Real delivery has happened — Censu Moran opened in Paola (mid-2025), Gozo Health Campus advancing, Mater Dei outsourcing scaled to €16M in Budget 2026, surgical backlog dropped per-capita despite ~40% growth in effective demand. But real failures are also documented — most prominently the Vitals/Steward concession which absorbed ~€457M of public money without delivering the strategic hospital transformation that was originally promised. 'Promised major investment but did not deliver' selects only the failure cases and ignores the genuine delivery; 'major investment was delivered' would ignore the Vitals failure. Neither side has the full picture.
MV Nikolaos has been leased by Gozo Channel since 2019 by direct order. The Shift News reporting puts daily lease cost at ~€10,000 excluding fuel. Adding fuel and operational costs typically pushes total daily costs into €12,000-€14,000 — Cutajar's '€13,000' sits in that band. On the second half of the claim (PL announcing new ferries after PN proposed): PN announced its 2026 manifesto two-ferry plan; PL subsequently announced its own new-ferries plan in election-cycle communications. The political timing supports the 'copying after PN proposal' framing. Mostly True: lease cost in band, timing of ferry announcements ordered as Cutajar describes.
Documented historical fact. Malta-Sicily interconnector conceived 2008 under Lawrence Gonzi PN government; cable contract signed with Nexans Norway in December 2010 under PN; EU funding secured under PN. Construction completed under PL with operational launch March 2015. Lawrence Gonzi invited to the inauguration as recognition of PN-era origin. Total project cost: €182M; cable length: 95 km between Magħtab and Marina di Ragusa. Cross-administration project: PN conceived, contracted and financed; PL completed and operationalised.
Courts found fraud — but the ICC arbitration in November 2025 ruled Malta got fair value for what it paid. The 'foreigners' framing also erases the Maltese officials at the centre of the criminal case.