PN prepared to go to court on electricity bills overcharging

Adrian Delia has promised to pursue the controversy on electricity overcharging in court, unless the government compensates consumers bitten by the billing method.

The Nationalist Party leader said 80% of bills the party had analysed, showed some form of overcharging.

READ ALSO: PN claims ARMS bills increased by up to €600 each year under Labour

Delia promised that unless the government rectified the problem and compensated consumers accordingly, the PN was ready to take the matter to court. He did not specify whether this would be a class action.

Speaking on NET TV’s Iswed fuq l-Abjad, a discussion programme, on Thursday evening, Delia pledged that a future PN government would immediately compensate consumers if the matter remained unresolved.

The controversy erupted last month when economist Marie Briguglio noted how the billing system utilised by ARMS, the utility billing company, was cheating consumers from the annual allocation of cheap units.

The matter revolves around the two-monthly actual bills being sent to consumers, which are splitting the annual quota of cheap units into smaller portions. As a result, consumers end up jumping into the higher brackets every two months, and with ARMS failing to reconcile the bills on an annual basis, consumers end up paying more.

The PN has insisted the billing system is in breach of the law, which dictates how utilities are billed.

Energy Minister Joe Mizzi said in Parliament this week that an investigation on the matter was underway. However, Mizzi insisted that the billing system has been in place since 2009.

READ ALSO: Joe Mizzi, David Agius spar on electricity billing system