Enemalta Corporation admitted yesterday it has been stingy in the past, in connection with its discount for electricity used in street decorations over the Christmas period.

It said yesterday that upon a directive of the Investment, Industry and Technology Ministry, it was introducing a new scheme intended to reduce the expenditure on the consumption of electricity for those organisations that decorate the streets with Christmas lights, especially streets in the commercial centres.

“Until now,” it said, “Enemalta Corporation used to give a discount to whoever used a temporary metre for this kind of service, whereby the first 50 units consumed were free. This meant an effective discount of less than Lm3, which cost the corporation less than Lm300 last year.

“This scheme, which was hardly generous,” it added, “has now been abolished.”

Instead, Enemalta said, it has now been given a directive so that each temporary service of electricity used for the decoration of streets during Christmas will be discounted by 50 per cent. “This means that the electricity used for Christmas street lighting will be paid at half price. This scheme will cost the corporation about Lm5,000.”

The corporation added: “This is a contribution which the corporation feels is its social responsibility. The corporation hopes this contribution will help to make the commercial centres look more beautiful during this time of year when more shopping occurs.”