A day is a long time in corruption. Owen Bonnici and Beppe Fenech Adami were on TVAM last Thursday discussing the smart meter scam. Bonnici told us that the case involved about 1,000 consumers and €30 million of revenue loss. “Think of what we could do with €30 million,” he said, implying that government wisdom had hit on yet another means of feeding the poor.

I found myself talking to a computer screen. How could Fenech Adami have missed the cue so spectacularly? He hadn’t. Later that day he called a press conference to announce the biggest mathematical breakthrough since Perelman’s work on Poincar 30 million divided by 1,000 gives you 30,000.

In euros, that’s the average amount stolen by government’s shoal of small-fry consumers. Maybe it’s the type of company they’re keeping but our government’s standards of fish size seem rather high these days. To me at least, 30K is more Great White than Guppy.

Only later that evening, Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi came to the rescue. He told Dissett that the 30 million figure was the grand total for energy theft; it wasn’t clear how much of it was down to smart meter tampering. And on Friday morning, the Prime Minister suggested that the case may well involve many more than 1,000 consumers.

The conclusion is that €30,000 is too high an average amount, and that the definition of small-fry consumers is spot on. Either way, Muscat and Co. are in a strange place here. On the one hand they’re pushing as high a total figure as possible. They need that, for two reasons.

First, in order to be able to argue that government zeal is saving the country vast amounts of cash. Second, because a big number is more likely to do the arloġġ tal-lira’s unfinished business.

On the other, the last thing they need is a high figure for the average amount stolen. That would put a big dent into their rhetoric, based as it is on the populist appeal of zoological metaphor. By which I mean things like ‘l-għanqbuta’ (the web), ‘il-brimba’ (the spider), ‘il-ħuta l-kbira’ (the big fish), and so on.

There are three reasons why the Opposition is right on this one. First, this whole ‘iż-żgħir’ (small fry) argument doesn’t hold water. Even if 30K were indeed peanuts, or if the real figure were lower, the idea that small is beautiful is quite simply wrong.

I was once booked by a spectral traffic policeman for doing a U-turn on a deserted road at 5.30 in the morning. I remember fuming as I drove off to a lighter pocket and apparitions of boy racers in tinted-glass modified Mercs who oversped, spat at pedestrians, ran over pets at will, and got away with all of it. It sort of kept my mind busy for a bit and made me feel better, but I knew all along that I had got what I deserved.

Besides, ‘iż-żgħir’ has become an escape clause for all sorts of dubious stunts, from building a green compound on the beach at Armier to helping an old fridge off a cliff at Delimara. Which is a problem when every single member of a national population fancies themself as ‘żgħir’. Fenech Adami might want to consider another press conference to tell us that 400,000 żgħir = one kbir.

The second reason why the Prime Minister and his army of wordsmiths are wrong has to do with the specifics of the matter at hand.

There are two types of bribes. The first is usually associated with situations of chronic and widespread corruption, and is about buying access to essential state resources which would otherwise be impossible to get. An example would be slum dwellers in India whose only means of getting water and electricity is to bribe officials into doing the paperwork.

In this case the two parties are on unequal footing. Because the slum dwellers have little option, and because the transaction involves a matter of life and death (it’s either the bribe or the risk of getting cholera and dying in the dark), their action is both understandable and forgivable.

The real villains of the plot are the officials, even though one might argue that in such situations, backhanders become the norm. The point is that responsibility for this type of corruption should be reckoned vertically, with the bulk squarely at the top end.

This whole ‘iż-żgħir’ (small fry) argument doesn’t hold water

The smart meter business belongs to a second type of bribe. It is about buying access to unfair advantage over a state resource which would otherwise be perfectly accessible anyway. I don’t recall paying a bribe but I got my smart meter in May of last year and I’ve enjoyed a largely uninterrupted power supply since. This is not a matter of choosing between a backhander and cholera; it’s simply a choice between paying a bribe and paying one’s bills.

Responsibility for this type of corruption should properly be reckoned horizontally. The donors and recipients are equal partners in crime, and no amount of euphemism (‘consumers isn’t that lovely?) will shift the balance.

The Opposition is right on a third count. On Thursday morning’s programme, Bonnici seemed to hit, in real time, on an argument he thought would help his cause. The hapless consumers would only be granted the court’s favour if they provided information. Mizzi and later the Prime Minister were quick to take the hint and it has now become part of the official explanation.

Problem is, we have no idea what the criteria might be. Are we talking about the kind of information that is usually linked to pardons and amnesties – the kind, that is, that helps secure a conviction? Or will a ‘forgive me, for I have sinned’ suffice? Will the informants be required to testify in court? And so on.

Make no mistake, this is a cock-up of massive proportions, which is sad really, because things could be very different. Only in their rush to have their cake and eat it, Muscat & Co. have messed up the whole thing. Which leaves the law with a rather long list of zoological metaphors to its name.

mafalzon@hotmail.com