Petromal’s New Chairman Linked to Vitals Scandal Sparks Island-Wide Skepticism
Petromal’s New Chairman Was Part of Committee That Recommended Vitals – and the Island Is Already Grumbling
By Hot Malta Staff | 07 June 2025 | Local News, Politics
Valletta’s summer haze hadn’t even properly settled when the appointment landed like a pastizz that’s been left in the fryer too long: Petromal – the state energy company that keeps our lights on and our utility bills the subject of bar-stool lament – has a new chairman. Dr. Adrian Delia, formerly magistrate, former MP, and, crucially, one of the three-person “evaluation committee” that in 2015 gave the now-notorious Vitals Global Healthcare concession the green light, is back in a plush leather chair paid for by taxpayers.
Cue the collective Maltese eye-roll.
In any other country the link might be a footnote; in Malta it is front-page melodrama. We are, after all, the island where everyone knows whose cousin drives which minister’s neighbour, where a €1.20 bus ticket can come with a running commentary on who did what to whom in 1987. So when the same names keep bobbing to the surface of the national punch-bowl, we notice.
The Vitals saga is our home-grown Netflix series: three hospitals, €2.1 billion in projected revenue, a 30-year concession awarded to a company with zero hospital track record, and a trail of courtrooms thick with lawyers sipping iced coffee while the rest of us wonder why the lifts at Mater Dei still creak. The concession was rescinded in 2018, criminal charges followed, and the civil court annulled the deal last February, ruling “fraud” and “collusion”. Throughout, Dr. Delia has insisted he merely scored the technical bids and never met the investors.
Yet perception is the Maltese national sport. Social media erupted within minutes of Friday’s press release. “Same circus, different clown,” commented one Facebook user under a photo of Delia shaking hands with Energy Minister Miriam Dalli. Another quipped that “Petromal” should be rebranded “Petro-mañana”, referencing the island’s favourite procrastination joke. By Sunday, the meme of Delia’s face super-imposed on a hospital linen cart had done the rounds of every family WhatsApp group.
Why do we care so much? Because energy is the invisible thread that stitches Maltese life together. It fuels the fireworks factories of Ħaż-Żebbuġ, keeps the tuna farms off Ċirkewwa humming, and cools the tourist buses that crawl through Mdina. When utility tariffs hiccup, the shock wave hits every household budget from the Valletta penthouse to the Gozitan farmhouse. Petromal’s strategic plan for the next decade – including the switch to hydrogen-ready pipelines and the new Delimara battery-storage project – will decide whether our 2026 electricity bills feel Mediterranean or Scandinavian.
Appointing a chairman whose name is forensic-exhibit-A in the court of public opinion risks undermining the very credibility Petromal needs to finance those upgrades. International green-bond investors read Maltese newspapers too; they know the difference between political risk and political farce.
Still, the government defends the choice. “Dr. Delia brings 25 years of legal and regulatory expertise,” insisted a spokesperson, pointing to his doctorate in energy law and his “unblemished” record before the courts. The Opposition, for once aligned with the cafè chatter, called the appointment “a spit in the face of every nurse who worked unpaid overtime while Vitals siphoned millions”.
On the street, opinions split along generational lines. Older voters, who remember the 1981 political violence, shrug: “Kollox possibbli f’Malta” – anything is possible in Malta. Millennials and Gen-Z, fuelled by €7 craft beer and EU-funded masters degrees, demand transparency dashboards and live-streamed board meetings. One thing unites both camps: scepticism.
The real casualty may be civic trust. Each time a controversial figure is recycled, the message beamed into every Maltese classroom is that accountability is optional. That is poison for a country trying to attract blockchain start-ups and medical-tourism clinics promising Swiss standards.
What happens next? If Delia survives the inevitable parliamentary question barrage, he must open Petromal’s books wider than a festa firework. Publish board minutes, upload procurement contracts, invite NGOs to audit the hydrogen pilot. Only radical transparency can scrub the stain of Vitals off his résumé – and, by extension, off our national psyche.
Malta deserves an energy future that feels like a summer night in St Julian’s: bright, safe, pleasantly predictable. The appointment of Adrian Delia doesn’t have to doom that vision, but it has certainly raised the stakes. In the words of every Maltese mother counting cents at the supermarket: “Nħalluk nar, imma ħares.” We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, but we’re watching. And on this rock, somebody’s nanna always knows somebody who knows the truth.
