‘I suggest you put that article down’ – Enemalta spokesman loses it

Updated on Monday, 22 July

NEWZ.mt reported on Sunday afternoon that Malta’s electricity monopolist has neither confirmed nor denied claims that it sourced generators from Keith Schembri’s Kasco.

The news tip was received from a usually well-informed source, but had Enemalta denied what was actually claimed, it would not even have become a story.

Our article cited a statement received from Enemalta’s head of communications, Ryan Rapa, saying “the individual mentioned is not involved in these contracts”.

In fact, Enemalta had been asked for any involvement of companies connected to Schembri – and not Schembri himself.

NEWZ.mt even reproduced the electricity supplier’s full statement which completely ignored our questions about cost and sources of the leased mobile generators.

This is of particular public interest, as Enemalta is a taxpayer-owned monopolist through a 67% majority share held by the Government of Malta.

Meanwhile, The Shift has revealed that Enemalta is forking out more than €10,000 an hour – that’s at least €166 per minute – to lease these large generators.

FOI requests underway

NEWZ.mt understands that several newsrooms are in the process of filing numerous Freedom of Information (FOI) requests in order to obtain more detailed information.

Usually, government entities and government-owned companies reject these requests, citing commercial sensitivity among other reasons given in order to conceal information from the public.

This regularly leads to complaints with the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, usually followed by court appeals which are decided in favour of the public’s ‘right to know’.

In all of these cases, the government spends tens of thousand of Euros of taxpayers’ money – your money – on its practically pointless legal representation.

Odd suggestions

Shortly after we published our article on Sunday afternoon, Enemalta spokesperson Ryan Rapa oddly suggested that we had not read the last sentence of the company’s statement.

Fun fact: the sentence in question and its particular wording had actually become the centrepiece of our report.

“I think you didnt read the last sentence!!!”, Rapa lectured editor Michael Kaden, and ‘suggested’ to “put the article down”, as “this is not what we sent in the statement”.

“It is with amusement that NEWZ.mt takes note of these lines, as we immediately insisted on a precise answer as soon as we received the statement on Saturday evening”, Kaden said.

“Our immediate request for clarification had remained unanswered until we published the piece on Sunday afternoon. Only at this point Enemalta started intervening in our reporting in numerous attempts to call and email us”, he added.

Only after our article was published on Sunday afternoon, Enemalta clearly stated that “the leased generators are leased from another company that was chosen after a call for tenders and is not Kasco or companies related to the individual mentioned”.

NEWZ.mt decided to publish this separate article after Enemalta had earlier on Sunday hit out at what it called “negative comments and propoganda spread by certain individuals”.

This newsroom also understands that colleagues across media houses have been complaining among themselves about the attitudes shown by Enemalta’s head of communications.

Cover Image: Government Broadcaster PBS