Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/262615
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 19 FEBRUARY 2014 News 2 By paying Enemalta penalty, common 'bribers' may be legally off the hook MIRIAM DALLI IN a political bid not to press charges against some 1,000 con- sumers and business owners for bribing Enemalta officials into tampering their electricity me- ters, the government is saying that anyone with information on the organisers of the meter racket will be protected under the Whistle- blower Act. Yesterday, parliamentary secre- tary for justice Owen Bonnici said the government wanted consumers to help the police "catch the spider that wove the web" of an organised racket that tampered the suppos- edly 'tamper-proof ' digital meters. Criticism of government's de- cision to waive criminal steps against meter owners who bribed Enemalta employees to have the meters rigged and register less en- ergy consumed yesterday intensi- fied, with the Nationalist Party accusing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the government of issuing a blanket pardon for the 'bribers'. Enemalta yesterday did not dis- close the exact amount of residen- tial and business meters that had been found tampered with, when asked by MaltaToday. On his part, Bonnici insisted that the government was "after the big fish" and that the Whistleblower Act was there "to defend hon- est people… Giving information is an essential part of the waiver, something we want to emphasise because we don't believe that this plan was devised by eight people alone. Such a widespread activity has to involve more people," he said. Although the Criminal Code is clear over people who bribe public officials to "forbear" what they are in duty bound to do, the electric- ity regulations allows Enemalta to waive criminal charges on theft of electricity if all damages are set- tled with interest, and an admin- istrative fine is paid. This last step, criminal law- yer and head of department of criminal law Stefano Filletti told MaltaToday, may be crucial in understanding that paying an ad- ministrative penalty to Enemalta can constitute a bar for criminal prosecution – in a nutshell, con- sumers who pay the penalty could be 'protected' under the principle of double jeopardy. "Apart from that, it is not easy to charge some 1,000 people: the prosecution would not only have to prove that energy theft has oc- curred, but also that bribery took place, producing evidence on each instance of bribery separately in each and every case," Filletti told MaltaToday. The government is now saying that providing information on the tampering of smart meters or elec- tricity theft "is a prerequisite" for the waiver. It is also insisting that legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General suggests that payments carried out by the consumers, may not amount to bribery of the pub- lic officials. Bonnici said that while the law allows the politically-appointed chairman of Enemalta to waive criminal proceedings against con- sumer theft – as laid down in a legal notice introduced in 2006 by then energy minister Austin Gatt – he claimed advice from the At- torney General was that consum- ers may have not carried out an act of bribery as defined in Article 115 of the Criminal Code. Energy minster Konrad Mizzi yesterday said that over €240 mil- lion in energy was consumed over the past years, without ever being paid for. The figure emerged in a press conference organised in reply to accusations by Nationalist MPs Beppe Fenech Adami and George Pullicino criticising the govern- ment for waiving criminal steps against the consumers and busi- nesses who paid Enemalta em- ployees to have their smart meters tampered and register less energy consumed. Mizzi defended the government's strategy in tracking down over 1,000 smart meters, believed to have been tamper-proof, that were registering less energy than what was being consumed. "When I informed the prime minister about it, he was angry. We set up a control theft unit, dis- covered smart meters that were under-registering, sent them to Enel to have them analysed, and then sent inspectors to consum- ers and we had a 95% success rate. We continued investigating to find the spider in this web of organised crime... we suspended eight people and the police is continuing with its investigation. The web could be larger, and we're telling consumers to come forward." Mizzi accused the former Na- tionalist government of having been unable to clamp down on a multi-million energy theft, and that the same administration had launched a blanket pardon to eve- ryone on condition of a Lm100 (€233) penalty. "They had a one-off pardon in 2006 where not even the energy that was illegally consumed was paid back. Today we are pros- ecuting those who organised the racket and telling people to come forward, pay with interest and penalties. So I ask Fenech Adami and Pullicino: have they got any shame?" Mizzi said. Mizzi also accused former fi- nance minister Tonio Fenech of refusing to answer to how he han- dled energy theft under his watch. "Every year there were clear dis- claimers in Enemalta's accounts f lagging the thefts, accounts which were sent to Fenech and tabled in parliament." Asked whether the government planned on publishing the list of people – both households and businesses – the energy minister said he would first seek legal ad- vice. Pointing out that it was the public's right to know who these consumers were, Bonnici said pub- lishing the list of names now could hinder the ongoing investigations. "The law must always be respect- ed in whatever we do. Automati- cally, when a person is arraigned, his or her name will become pub- lic," he said. The two ministers insisted they had not seen the list of 1,000 con- sumers. Bonnici added that criminal steps will be taken against con- sumers who do not come forward to resolve their irregularities: "No one will come out of this scot-free. Those who come forward must provide information. Those who don't come forward will face crim- inal action." Mizzi said that a number of per- sons had already contacted En- emalta, while Enemalta officers were carrying out inspections on suspicious smart meters. With annual theft amounts amounting to €30 million, it is certain that tampered smart me- ters surpass the 1,000 figure. The energy minister said different methods existed with tampering different power meters and En- emalta's Theft Control Unit was in the process of devising different strategies to catch out the differ- ent methods. mdalli@mediatoday.com.mt Proving bribery of Enemalta customers who paid employees to rig their meter could be problematic for police • legal expert says customers who pay administrative penalty may not be liable to criminal charges under principle of double jeopardy Family expert says homosexuality still carries stigma MATTHEW CHARLES ZAMMIT A parliamentary debate on the civil union law and adoption of children by same-sex couples open to the general public, academics and non-academics alike, yesterday expressed their diver- gent views on the controversial issue in what turned out to be a fiery and argumentative session. The main guest during the Par- liamentary consideration of bills meeting was Angela Abela, Head of Department of the Family Studies in the Faculty of Social Well-Being, who held that the department's philosophy was always "one of collaboration, and not of polarisation, because the latter usually comes as a result of lack of re- flection." Abela added that "this is a very sen- sitive subject, and this responsibility must be entered into with a sense of collaboration, only then can our soci- ety flourish". Naming a number of studies which focused on the effects of children in adoption by homosexual couples, Abela pronounced her judgement that "within the limitations of all stud- ies composed up to this point, there exists no proof that the structure of the family, whether homosexual or heterosexual, proved to be either det- rimental or beneficial to the child's upbringing". "What matters are the following var- iables: the quality of the upbringing of the child in question, the relationship that the child has with her parents, the quality of the relationship of the child with other children and people outside the family, and the richness of the social and economic resources in the family. Only these four factors are seen to be able to help or negatively af- fect the upbringing of the child." Abela also cited the MaltaToday survey and the Church-commis- sioned MISCO survey regarding the general population's attitude towards same-sex adoption. While the former showed that 25% of correspond- ents were in favour, according to the former, the latter showed that only 20% favoured adoptions by same-sex couples. "Although I haven't seen clearly ei- ther how each survey was conducted, the miniscule 5% discrepancy for me is a clear sign that there is a large population in Malta still affected by stigma, and it's the latter which proves more detrimental to the child's upbringing than the structure of the family." Another intervention was by Miri- am Sciberras, who holds a Masters in Bio-ethics. She said that: "There are a number of first-hand experiences out there, written by people who were brought up by homosexual parents, who argue that half-heartedly, their adoption was more detrimental." In reaction to Sciberras' interven- tion family therapist Charles Azzop- ardi argued that "I have seen the same psychological and social problems which you have mentioned here in heterosexual couples. It's not the fam- ily structure that's relevant, it's the quality of their upbringing." The speaker who stood out the most however was Lana Borg, a homosex- ual; who described herself as being "afraid" of the thought that her cur- rent partner's daughter, who was born through artificial insemination, could be left legally parentless if her mother dies before the legal amendments could be brought forward, which made it possible for Borg to adopt this child as her own daughter. PN Deputy Leader Beppe Fenech