Who’s to say that whoever tampered with those meters wasn’t – unlike the meters – smart enough to have rigged other meters to give an inflated reading so as to cover for those showing only a fifth of the actual consumption?

The fact that this has been going on for so long seems to point in that direction.

So there is a strong likelihood that there are consumers out there who (for goodness knows how long) have been paying through the nose to unwittingly bankroll this caper.

Are you listening, Enemalta?

Any chance of running checks to find out if there are? And if there are, will they be refunded?

You know, run these checks to see if you have to make out any cheques.

One point I don’t think is amiss at this stage:

When the new utility rates came out some years ago, I thought this is when the lights were going out again in Malta.

(The last time they went out was when there was so much lead whizzing about one’s ears, and that’s leaving out the bird-hunters’; one could barely make out the sun at midday on a midsummer’s day.)

And I was so wrong. Large retail outlets that sprang up ubiquitously, especially along the bypasses, would be left in a blaze of light throughout the night, night after night.

Which, of course, set me wondering: How can they manage it? Considering the dent these rates must be making to their profit and loss account.

As the months became years, and these outlets soldiered on, left ablaze all night till dawn, I came to this conclusion: They are dealing in stuff that must have fallen off the back of some lorry on some Calabria autostrada.

Now I think most of us know why.   

Can we ever imagine, let alone hope for, the day to receive clean energy from you, Enemalta?

The whole shebang just seems to be all awash in sleaze.

 

Joe Genovese

Birkirkara