Special teams assigned to disconnect power, water

The Water Services Corporation and Enemalta Corporation have set up six teams that will enable them to disconnect an average of 70 water and electricity services a day once the November 30 deadline for settling unpaid bills expires.

Anthony Rizzo and Ray Attard, the chief executive officers of WSC and Enemalta respectively, said some Lm18.4 million is owed to both corporations.

A drive is underway to make people realise that it pays them to pay up before the end of the month. Otherwise they would have their service disconnected and incur an interest of eight per cent on outstanding bills as well as paying Lm60 for the reconnection of water and another Lm60 for the reconnection of electricity.

Since the campaign to make people pay started in January, some Lm3.2 million have been collected. This figure however includes amounts of money paid on current bills, so the corporation is not yet in a position to say how much has been paid up from older bills.

Mr Rizzo said a final warning will be sent at the end of November to those whose bills exceed Lm100 and have been pending for over a year after which interest will start to accrue and the services disconnected. To streamline operations, the six teams will start disconnecting the services village by village, rather than running from one end of the island to another.

"We do not wish to get to that stage but if people do not pay, we have no alternative," he said.

Both corporations are incurring interest amounting to Lm828,000 annually on the amounts owed in outstanding bills.

The largest single debt belongs to Malta Shipyards Ltd, which accounts for 23 per cent of what is owed to Enemalta, but the company's debts have been taken over by the government and will be offset against other subventions.

Forty-four per cent of the amounts due are by domestic consumers, 23 per cent is owed by the government (22 per cent is the shipyards' debt), 18 per cent by industrial establishments and nine and six per cent respectively by commercial establishments and hotels.

Mr Rizzo said the corporation had a register with details of social cases and where these had long outstanding bills, discussions would take place with the ministry responsible for social affairs about how these could be tackled.

As from next year, the corporation would start issuing bi-monthly bills for domestic and small consumers and monthly bills to large consumers, Mr Rizzo said.