New details about the smart meter tampering scam was given in court today by two Enemalta officials who testified about the initial investigations.

Police Inspector Daniel Zammit also told the court that the police have not yet spoken to consumers who made use of tampered meters because of a political decision and because an amnesty may be given to those people.

So far, he said the police felt it prudent not to speak to them until a decision was taken.

The evidence was given during the hearing of the case against  suspended Enemalta fitters Emanuel Micallef and Richard Gauci, who were arraigned last week for allegedly tampering with smart meters.

Taking the witness stand, Antoine D'Ambrogio, internal auditor at Enemalta, said that in July, the corporation had received information about meters being tampered with.

Initially three meters were sent to Enel in Italy, which had designed the meters, to verify what the problem with the meters was.

It was confirmed that the meters were under-reading because the circuit board had been tampered with.

Enemalta had established two patterns of behaviour which gave rise to suspicion. The first was when some Smart Meters were replaced with other Smart Meters for no apparent reason, and the second was when installed meters did not have an initial reading of zero but had an amount already registered on them. However, of the second type, not all had been tampered with as some had been tested in the factory.

he said the accused Richard Gauci had installed 14 tampered meters while Mr Micallef had installed four, but investigations were still under way. This was a laborious process and their number is expected to grow, Mr D'Ambrogio said.

Engineer Carmel Scerri said he was the manager of the distribution centre and was in charge of the meters when they needed to be replaced or whenever there was a problem.

He became aware of the issue in June when a meter was returned to Enemalta from a house in Attard. When it was placed on a test bench it was found to be under-reading by 70 per cent. 

Enemalta then received another meter from Attard which was under-reading by 45 per cent.

Anonymous information was received about a third meter in Fgura which was found to be under-reading by 92 per cent.

By coincidence, during this time an Enel delegation was in Malta and the meters were shown to them.  The equipment the delegation brought with it confirmed that the meters were under-reading.

The meters were kept sealed and the Enel officials took them to Italy for testing.

Mr Scerri said the meters had not been purchased directly from Enel. They were made in China and bought from IBM.

The engineer said that in terms of EU rules, a Smart Meter could not be repaired but had to be replaced.

Enel had told Enemalta that the meters had been opened in a very professional manner. It was found that components in the circuit board were missing at the point where the current was being read. The majority of the tampered meters had been under-reading by 65%.

Enel had had other instances of meters being tampered with and similar problems as encountered in Malta had popped up in Southern Italy.

Lawyer Joe Giglio asked Mr Scerri if it was possible that an installer would install a smart meter without being aware that it had been tampered with.

The engineer said that theoretically, that could happen. However a smart meter would leave the Enemalta store sealed. The installer would sign for it and would also sign for the seals that were placed on it.

During arguments on bail, the police objected and said that if this amnesty came about, it would last for six weeks, during which people could come forward. Although the lists of these consumers were not public, the accused knew who these people were and could contact them.

Defence lawyers Joe Giglio and Dominic Micallef said their clients should be granted bail because had they wanted to speak to anyone, they had the time to do so.

The police insisted that the investigation is ongoing. 

Bail was refused by Magistrate Carol peralta, who cited publicity, sensationalism and public alarm over the case.

Lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri appeared for Enemalta.