Joseph Muscat declared “Enemalta is serving as a dead weight on the country’s finances”. Konrad Mizzi announced in disgust, “Enemalta is the albatross around the island’s neck - with 50 million losses every year”. That was years ago. Those words ring far truer today.
After years of Labour’s boasts about Enemalta’s miraculous turnaround, Enemalta is back on its knees. Labour desperately concealed the huge losses that Enemalta was accumulating. How many millions Enemalta owed nobody really knew for years. Enemalta didn’t publish accounts since 2018. We all know why. Labour ran Enemalta into the ground through gross mismanagement, exorbitant salaries for political appointees and criminal dealings that funnelled millions into Yorgen Fenech’s 17-Black.
In 2013, Konrad Mizzi was appalled by Enemalta’s 50 million annual losses. This year Malta’s Labour government has committed 200 million euro to cover Enemalta’s losses. In addition Enemalta has taken a 20 million revolving loan with the banks. And another 20 million special loan guaranteed by the Maltese Development bank. That was before Russia’s war in Ukraine. Things will only get worse.
In 2018 Enemalta boasted that Standard and Poor’s endorsed “Enemalta’s turnaround”. Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi hailed their economic miracle and triumphantly broadcast S&P’s praise: “Enemalta’s swing to profitability is now consolidated”. That was 2017. Enemalta stopped bragging. It’s also stopped publishing its accounts. S&P has suddenly changed its mind. In its latest report the credit rating agency noted that “Enemalta’s losses were fully covered by the government in 2021”. The only reason they didn’t downgrade Enemalta from its B+ rating was because of the “high likelihood that the government would provide sufficient and extraordinary support to the company”. “Enemalta’s business model is at risk of becoming unsustainable”, S&P warned.
The millions Enemalta squandered over the years are being paid - by the hard working people of this country. The burden of the company’s gross mismanagement is borne by the workers.
While Enemalta’s losses mount, Labour’s insiders gorge themselves. Yorgen Fenech’s 17-Black received 7 million euro out of a rotten deal through which Enemalta paid 10.3 million for a share in the Montenegro Mozura windfarm that had been sold for just 2.6 million, days before.
86-year-old Salvu Sant, brother of the notorious Works minister Lorry Sant, collected his 50,000 euro share of 200,000 euro awarded to the four directors of the company running the BWSC power plant. He was appointed director by Robert Abela.
Shangai Electric, the Chinese company owning the BWSC plant made over 15 million euro profits in 2020 and another 17 million euro in 2019.
Jonathan Cardona, Joseph Muscat’s close friend, was appointed Enemalta CEO with an obscene pay package of over 160,000 euro annually. His contract includes a bizarre clause entitling him to an additional “service bonus” worth thousands even if his contract is not renewed. Cardona was Muscat’s chief passport salesman before his Enemalta appointment. He squandered over 300,000 euro in taxpayer’s funds travelling the globe selling passports. Cardona is paid as much as Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister.
Cardona wasn’t happy with just that. He hired his former close assistant and travelling companion Monica Farrugia as Enemalta executive director despite her complete lack of experience in the management of such a large organisation. She will collect a cool 105,000 euro annually. She’s also entitled to another 12,000 euro performance bonus every year - and that bonus will be decided by her long time colleague Jonathan Cardona himself.
David Galea, Konrad Mizzi’s close friend was awarded a 600 euro a day contract for “general consulting” to Enemalta. He got the contract just one week after Mizzi took office. Between 2013 and 2019, Galea won 35 direct contracts worth over 1 million euro. Even after Mizzi’s banishment, Galea is still getting Enemalta direct orders for “work in the preparation of a negotation position”.
While Enemalta is kept afloat by monthly state subsidies out of taxpayers’ money, Labour’s shameless fixers continue to siphon off hundreds of thousands of euro. Who approved Jonathan Cardona’s eye watering deal? Who agreed to pay Monica Farrugia more than the President of the Republic? How can a practically insolvent company justify such shameless waste?
As the Enemalta ship rapidly takes in water and lists dangerously, Salvu Sant, Cardona, Monica Farrugia, David Galea and Shangai electric continue to bleed the nation. Those with more sense than greed, like Enemalta Chairman Jonathan Scerri, have abandoned that sinking ship like fleeing rats.
Barely months after his appointment, Jonathan Scerri fled. He gave no explanation. Jonathan Scerri had been in business with the wife of former Enemalta executive chairman, Frederick Azzopardi. Azzopardi served as CEO between January and August 2014 and then executive Chairman between August 2014 and December 2017. He oversaw the machinations at Enemalta.
Labour promised “no privatisation of Enemalta will take place” but then sold a 33% stake to Shangai Electric. It hived off its only asset, the BWSC power plant, to the Chinese. Most damning of all, Azzopardi’s Enemalta pumped millions into 17 Black. After boasting that “Enemalta ended years of losses and registered profits”, Azzopardi quickly abandoned ship and moved to Infrastructure Malta where he earned the moniker “butcher of nature and people’s private property”. He gained notoriety for bulldozing private land without the necessary permits and for defying ERA stop-and-compliance orders. He’s now abandoned that ship too. He’s taking the role of CEO of James Caterers group - the lucky recipient of an illegal Labour government contract worth over quarter of a billion euro at SVPR.
Enemalta’s miracle turnaround is nothing but another Joseph Muscat and Konrad Mizzi grand deception. Like Air Malta, Enemalta is a catastrophic mess - sustained only by illegal state subsidies which Labour deviously conceals from the EU. Konrad Mizzi was mistaken - the true albatross around the island’s neck isn’t Enemalta, it’s Labour.