Stealing from the commons

One sure deterrent against bribery and corruption is naming and shaming those involved. This should apply to those who paid a bribe to have their smart meter tampered with, while others were paying their bills to the last cent.

The government has offered these cheaters an escape route from prosecution but only if they pay their dues, pay a fine and provide information to nail the corrupt officials.

One may argue that what the government is doing is simply encouraging these people to come up with information on their own steam instead of waiting for investigators to find them.

But in this way the public will never know the identity of those cheaters who choose to collaborate - effectively by buying their way out.

Therefore we will not even ever know the full extent of the theft, for while all those involved are equally guilty of theft irrespective of whether they are fat cats or average cheats, it is in the public interest to know whether hotels and big companies were also involved, simply because these would have consumed vast amounts of energy at a criminally discounted rate, thus defying any notion of corporate responsibility.

In my opinion, businesses benefiting from the scheme should be considered  as much "big fish" as the corrupt Enemalta officials who offered them the service. 

The business community itself would benefit from naming and shaming these cheaters as it will enable business organisations to ostracise these people and keep them at a distance. It should be pointed out that these cheats had an unfair advantage over their competitors by benefiting from this illegal act.

Naming and shaming in this case is clearly in the public interest. For example it would be unacceptable if any of these cheaters occupy positions of responsibility in the community. But the only way to avoid this from happening is to publish their names now. What if one of those who bribed a public official to avoid paying their dues to the state, stands for election some time in the future?

I would also like to know whether the list includes people who portray themselves as upright members of the community, or proponents of corporate responsibility.

Moreover, in a country where political patronage and nepotism are rampant, naming and shaming those party to bribery is vital to dispel any impression that a cover-up is taking place.

We are also told that a 2006 legal notice issued by a PN government grants the Enemalta chairman the ability to waive consumers' criminal liability in such cases.  Instead of using this waiver, a Labour government elected on a platform of transparency should revoke or change this legal notice.

The justification given by government for this qualified amnesty is that it ensures a quicker way for the financially-troubled Enemalta to recover its dues and any information provided would serve to nail the big fish.

The problem is that the message being sent to the public is that stealing from the common good, by not paying for what is due for a public good, is a lesser crime than other crimes which immediately expose you to criminal prosecution. Moreover, in this case money was offered to public officials to get the desired outcome i.e. lower electricity bills.

While any sort of theft from a private individual is bound to land you in court, the same does not apply to theft from the State. The fact that such theft was aggravated by a payment to a public official makes the escape route for cheaters harder to stomach.

Unfortunately this is another case where the plunder of national resources is given impunity. This is the same country where 8,000 boreholes have been drilled to extract water for free; where electricity is provided for free to an illegal boathouse village in Armier; where contractors like Charles Polidano were treated with kids gloves by the previous government and inconclusive action was only taken in December. 

Surely the extent of the corruption involved also exposes the lax ways of the previous government. 

Even if they did not know about the actual tampering of smart meters, the spike in energy theft should have alerted the government and prompted a widespread investigation, especially at a time when we were told that higher bills were necessary to ensure the sustainability of the country's finances.

But if Labour is really interested in bringing about change based on social justice, it must start by sending a strong message against those who steal from the commons. This is a very important test for the government and so far the message sent was a disconcerting one.