Enemalta has uncovered the organised theft of electricity on a large scale, through the tampering of smart meters belonging to both private residences and businesses.
The scam involves about 1,000 smart meters so far, in what is believed to be an inside job.
Three Enemalta employees suspected of being behind the abuse were suspended from work yesterday and are being investigated by the police.
It is evident that theft is rampant and this cannot go on
The energy corporation’s internal investigation, launched a few months ago, is still under way and the discovery of more tampered meters and the involvement of more employees is not being excluded.
Details of the investigation were unveiled at a late press conference yesterday by Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi at Enemalta’s head office.
According to the preliminary details, Enemalta personnel were illegally tampering with newly installed smart meters by opening them and installing a system which records lower consumption.
‘We’ll catch meter tamperers’
It is estimated that this system was recording only some 20 units of consumption for every 100 units of electricity actually consumed. This was resulting in big losses for Enemalta and much lower bills for the accounts owners.
The discovery was made following an exercise conducted by Enemalta which studied the patterns of some of its 200,000 smart meters already installed.
Fredrick Azzopardi, the corporation’s CEO, said the data had been tracked for some time and when Enemalta officials were sent to examine the suspect meters, they immediately found the evidence they were looking for.
“We had been studying these patterns for a long time and almost all the cases we suspected resulted in tampering,” he said.
He warned that through the system it had adopted, Enemalta would catch up with all those carrying out the abuse.
“Let me make it clear that whoever is stealing electricity will be caught through the sophisticated systems we are using to track the abuse.
“It might take weeks or months but at the end, whoever is tampering with meters will be caught,” he warned.
The smart meters being installed are generally produced by Enel in Italy and were thought to be almost impossible to open and tamper with. However, according to Mr Azzopardi, those installing the fraudulent systems had somehow found a way to get around the sophisticated apparatus.
“Even the Italians of Enel were surprised by this new tempering mechanism,” Mr Azzopardi said.
Dr Mizzi, visibly angry, said that he was very hurt when he found out that it was an insider job.
“What hurt most is that people from among us were behind this racket,” he said.
Dr Mizzi said it was calculated that 10 per cent of Enemalta’s electricity generation was unaccounted for, resulting in the suspected theft of some €30 million a year.
“It is evident that theft is rampant and this cannot go on. It is not fair on those who are paying their dues and we will be making sure that all this lost revenue is recouped,” he said.
Asked whether Enemalta and the police would be taking action against the account holders of the meters in question, Dr Mizzi said the owners would all have to pay back the amounts stolen according to calculations being made.
The police will investigate and possibly take criminal action, he added.