Maltese taxpayers paid over €80,000 on adverts and marketing for Enemalta last year, figures tabled in Parliament on Tuesday revealed. 

The state-run company is Malta's sole energy provider and distributor.

While its 2023 marketing budget paled in comparison to the six-figure sums spent to advertise fuel importation firm Enemed,  it was still 128% higher than the €35,301 spent on such activities the previous year. 

Enemalta faced strident criticism last year after a prolonged heatwave led to 10 days of power cuts, leaving significant parts of the country without electricity for nights at a time. 

The government responded by pledging to double spending on energy infrastructure. Enemalta has since been busy laying new electricity cables, developing new distribution centres and promoting the work its technicians are doing.

According to the figures provided by Energy Minister Miriam Dalli in parliament, the company spent just over €36,000 on marketing in 2015, with that figure shooting up to €93,000 in the following year. 

Between 2017 and 2019, over €79,800 was spent on advertising. 

A significant drop was noted in 2020 when only €5,000 was spent on marketing and advertising, yet the figure shot up in 2021, when close to €18,000 was spent.

In eight years, a total of €348,744 was spent on advertising. 

Dalli provided the figures in reply to a parliamentary question filed by PN MP Mark Anthony Sammut. 

€21,200 spent on marketing in one year for ARMS

Sammut asked similar questions about advertising for the state-run electricity and water billing agency, ARMS, as well as Enemed.

In eight years over €1 million was spent on advertising for ARMS, the data revealed. 

The company's biggest-spending year for advertising was 2020, when it had a marketing budget of over €240,000. Its spending remained within six figures until 2023, when it dropped to €65,586. 

Figures were also provided on how much Interconnect Malta, the government-owned company that is entrusted with the energy interconnection project between Malta and Italy, spent on marketing between 2021 and 2023. 

Last year, a total of €14,926 was spent on marketing and adverts. 

Interconnect Malta is entrusted with the development of two principal energy infrastructure projects, namely IC2, the second electricity HVAC cable link between Malta and Italy, and the Melita TransGas Hydrogen-Ready Pipeline, which has been identified as a project of common interest by the European Union.

There was no data on how ARMS, Enemalta or Interconnect Malta spent its marketing budgets.