Updated | PN welcomes Judge's decision to hear case over potential nationwide ARMS billing error

Updated at 4:45 with government's reaction

The Nationalist Party has welcomed a decision by the courts to hear a case over the potential overcharging of customers by the utility billing agency ARMS.

Yesterday, Madam Justice Anna Felice rejected preliminary please put forward by ARMS in a case against it brought by two customers, ordering the case to continue on its merits.  

The customers are arguing that their utility bills were being calculated on a pro rata basis, despite the fact that the legal notice which sets utility tariffs states that residential properties should be subject to a tariff based on cumulative annual consumption.

In a statement, the PN welcomed the court’s decision, insisting that 80% of utility bills it has analysed had charged customers more than they owed.

"The Nationalist Party welcomes the decision taken by the court and this is the way forward for justice to be done with many consumers," David Agius, the Opposition’s spokesperson on Energy said.

READ MORE: Judge to hear case over potential nationwide ARMS billing error

The PN said ARMS overcharging customers was all the more concerning given the price the government was paying for Liquid Natural Gas used for the gas-powered power station.

"The Auditor General’s report found that Enemalta bought the least electricity from the interconnector when the price was low and purchased more gas-generated energy when the price was high,” the PN said.

It added that during the same period, had Enemalta purchased electricity from the interconnector, it would have saved thousands of Euro.

The PN reiterated that, irrespective of the court’s decision, it would pay back consumers that had been overcharged.  

In May of last year, the PN had asked the Regulator for Energy and Water Services to investigate the billing system.

READ MORE: Analysis - how energy consumption near tariff band is costing households more

Agius had told journalists that based on utility bills the Nationalist Party had seen, it appeared that people were paying between €6 and €600 more than they should be paying for their electricity.

Government reacts

The Ministry for Energy and Water Management said in a statement that nothing changed since 2010 with regards to billing. The only thing that changed, it said, was in 2014, when electricity rates went down by 25%.

"The way how rates are worked out hasn't changed since a Nationalist administration introduced the system in 2010," a ministry spokesperson said.

The ministry argued how the present administration and the previous governments, including Nationalist ones, always used the same system of interpreting legal notices on how utility bill rates are calculated.

"It's also worth mentioning that the Malta Resources Authority and the Regulator for Energy and Water Services, the current regulator, were consulted on this issue," the ministry said, adding that ARMS had conducted an exercise on how anomalies could be fixed and that this was not a question of whether people were robbed.

"Yesterday's court decision was a preliminary decision that did not touch upon how utility bills are worked out," the ministry said.