Prime Minister stands by amnesty for bribers

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has stood by his government's position not to launch criminal procedures against Enemalta customers who bribed employees to have their smart meters tampered with.

In a visit at the Farsons bottling plant, where the company announced a €27 million beer packaging plant for 2016, Muscat faced questions from the press as to whether law-abiding citizens were justified in their umbrage at the leniency with Enemalta customers implicated in the smart meter bribery.

The government claims it has identified over 1,000 smart meters that have been tampered.

"We are using a system that the former Nationalist government employed in 2006 when it gave people a few weeks' chance to regularise their own position and pay a Lm100 penalty," Muscat said, referring to a legal notice that gives the Enemalta chairman the power to waive criminal liability on energy theft.

"We're not just a different government, we are a better government," Muscat said when pressed on the expectations of justice and transparency he had built up during the last elections. "We are saying that these customers must pay the energy they stole, with interest and penalties, and also come forward with information. This was not done before.

"Enemalta employees have already been suspended, and the case has not been closed, so more revelations have yet to be made."

Muscat refuted suggestions that an 'amnesty' would be unjust to law-abiding citizens.

"The only injustice would be leaving thing as they are in Enemalta. We are getting information from people and this is the only way to stop this racket, of which nothing was done about in the past. People can be comforted by the fact that we are getting this information, which is mandatory for defaulting customers to give.