ARMS contests decision to lift lid on PL and PN’s energy bills

The billing company that processes payments for Malta’s energy and water services providers is contesting at the Court of Appeal a tribunal’s decision to comply with MaltaToday’s freedom of information request.

ARMS (Automated Revenue Management Services) has refused to disclose how much it is owed in outstanding electricity and water bills by the Labour and Nationalist parties or their holding companies.

MaltaToday’s request, filed in 2013, was turned down by ARMS and the refusal upheld by the Information and Data Protection Commissioner. But the IDPC appeals tribunal overturned the decision, saying that ARMS was not exempt from the FOIA law because it belonged to a “corporation”, which is not listed as an exempt public entity.

ARMS are contesting the tribunal decision, saying its decision was not based on MaltaToday’s contestation, and insisting that the billing company was a government-owned commercial entity exempt from the FOIA.

Under Article 5, Malta’s FOIA grants wide berth to all government companies to refuse requests for disclosure: specifically, documents “held by a commercial partnership  in  which  the government  or  another  public  authority  has  a controlling  interest,  in  so  far  as  the  documents  in question  relate  to  the  commercial  activities  of  the commercial partnership” are exempt.

The IDPC appeals tribunal disagreed, insisting that MaltaToday’s request does not concern documents related to ARMS’s commercial operations, “but with its own clients, which are holding companies of the political parties.”

Indeed the FOIA states that public authorities can make a copy of requested documents with the deletion of exempt matters. MaltaToday has insisted that the FOIA grants the IDPC the faculty of applying a public interest test and determine whether disclosing information would serve the public interest better, than having it not disclosed.

The test had to be based on MaltaToday’s insistence that unlike regular consumers, the two parties contested democratic elections and ultimately selected who would be minister responsible for energy affairs. As such, this potentially could allow them to negotiate better terms of repayment of their bills.

MaltaToday had told ARMS and the IDPC that consumers are at a disadvantage to political parties, which cannot be considered “normal clients” as ARMS insists they are. “Political parties field for election the very people who might end up being energy minister, or Enemalta chairman, or WSC chairman, even chief executive. The incestuous relationship between party and state in Malta is symbolised by the fact that ARMS has granted political parties extremely generous terms of credit on their pending energy bills,” MaltaToday had said.

ARMS told the Appeals Tribunal, chaired by lawyer Anna Mallia, that it was bound by confidentiality and that political parties were clients just like any other consumer.

But the tribunal agreed with MaltaToday that the documents requested were not exempt from the Freedom of Information Act since the documents requested did not pertain to the commercial activities of ARMS’s operations.

The Appeals Tribunal said that in terms of the FOIA’s own definition of public authority, ARMS Limited could not be considered a public authority.

ARMS is insisting in its Appeals Court application that the company is a “public authority” because it is an entity in which the government or any of its agencies has a controlling interest

In 2014, MaltaToday reported that it had information that the Nationalist and Labour parties had outstanding bills of a combined €2.5 million, with €1.9 million owed by the PN.

Enemalta’s new chief executive, Frederick Azzopardi, was elected for Labour on the Mdina local council; while former chairman Charles Mangion was later elected to the House of Representatives in a casual election. While political parties retain an influential hold on publicly-owned corporations, various clients who defaulted on their dues have been presented with judicial letters to pay up within a stipulated time, or have their services disconnected.