This newspaper first reported about the increase in ARMS bills in mid-April and, even then, people had been complaining about the issue for a number of weeks.
The Malta Independent spoke to economists to find out exactly what was happening and found that people were being charged much more than they should be because of the way ARMS was billing people every two months. More specifically, the issue revolves around the way the quota of cheaper units is being chopped up per two months.
An economist managed, in the space of a couple of hours, to explain all that is wrong with the system and how families are being robbed of their hard earned cash.
The authorities, it seems, is having trouble understanding what's going on.
The government had first refused to acknowledge that a problem exists, repeating the mantra that energy bills had been reduced by 25%. Government officials found it hard to understand the difference between the words 'rate' and 'bill', which are very different. Because while the rates per se have truly gone down, people are at the end of the day paying much more, in some cases sums much higher than the 25%.
When pressured by this newspaper, energy minister Joe Mizzi said he was waiting for feedback. That was four weeks ago.
Since then the PM has also changed his tune on the matter, explaining that a review of the system had been commissioned.
But in the meantime the weeks are rolling by and people are still paying bills that are much higher than they should be paying. And so far there has been no indication that these families will be reimbursed for the extra money they were forced to fork out.
The Nationalist Party has now taken up the fight on behalf of Maltese households and is urging anyone who receives a high energy bill to take it to the party's headquarters to have it examined. PN Leader Adrian Delia said on Sunday that, from the first sample of bills it emerged that households are being charged anything between €60 and €600 extra. That is no small sum – for many families it could mean cancelling plans for a summer holiday, not buying birthday or Christmas gifts for their children or even worse.
The PN has pledged to fight the good fight and ensure that these families are given back the money they were made to fork out extra. The situation is similar to when the Labour Party pledged to reimburse the VAT on car registration tax – a pledge that is being honoured.
While it is positive to see the Opposition being so proactive and acting on behalf of families we believe that this should ultimately be the government's job. The authorities need to wake up, figure out what the problem is, solve it and compensate families for the money that was stolen from them.
The more they procrastinate, the longer they take to sort this out the more money will be stolen from hard working Maltese families. This matter is of the utmost urgency.
from The Malta Independent https://ift.tt/2kCW6Or
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