The Prime Minister, Parliamentary Secretary Owen Bonnici and Minister Konrad Mizzi are being reported across all media to have stated that "consumers with any information on the tampering of smart meters that could lead Enemalta and the police to catch the "spider that weaved the web" can avail themselves of the Whistlebower Act."
Now this got me quite muddled up, since as far as I know the Whistleblower Act only comes into play to protect employers who uncover illegalities at their place of employment from being disciplined by their employer.
In fact, I went through the Act which can be found online which clearly states the following:
"To make provision for procedures in terms of which employees in both the private sector and the public administration may disclose information regarding improper practices by their employers or other employees in the employ of their employers and to protect employees who make said disclosures from detrimental action."
Moreover, the definition of whistleblower in the same Act is the following:
" "whistleblower" means any employee who makes a disclosure to a whistleblowing reporting officer or a whistleblowing reports unit, as the case may be, whether it qualifies as a protected disclosure or not under this Act;"
So can any one of the aforementioned Honourable individuals explain how consumers who bribed public officials can ever acquiesce of the Whistleblower Act? The aim of the Act is to protect any Enemalta employees who might have learned about the scam and disclosed information about it. The consumers who bribed the employees are not whistleblowers. The only way they can evade charges of bribery and corruption is either by a Presidential pardon, or by the dangerous precedent of having government interfere with the work of the police force and force it to drop criminal charges it should be investigating and prosecuting independently.
As to why Muscat, Bonnici and Mizzi are twisting truths on the Whistleblower Act and bringing it into play when it has nothing to do with the case, it's up to them to answer and clarify, and up to the media to stop parroting and start asking some real questions.
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