Paying for electricity which was never used

A few days after I paid my electricity bill for Lm288.01. Nothing unusual there, you would say. However, what was so extraordinary is that the bill in question was for the period from November 1998 to date for a residence which has long been demolished.

The last time I paid the electricity bill for the house was in November 1998 because two months later we sold it to a contractor who soon demolished it in order to build a block of flats instead. One of the flats was allocated to me and my wife by agreement with the contractor and we have been living in our new flat for the last five and a half years.

In other words our old house has been demolished for almost six years, and Enemalta has charged me for electricity we never used. I am not sure that no more bills would come, because Enemalta said we never told them to remove the meters before the house was pulled down, so the Lm288.01 were their estimate for the electricity we may have used in the last six years!

The contractor has assured me that all the forms related to meter removal had been filled and sent to Enemalta. We both went to the main office of Enemalta in Valletta and explained everything. I even gave them a copy of the part of the contract indicating that our old residence was sold in February 1999 and demolished soon after.

They even sent two of their representatives and saw for themselves that our electricity and water meters are now installed in the new block of flats. I have already paid a total of over Lm500 in water and electricity bills since we moved into our new flat.

The two Enemalta officials promised to see to the matter. That was some four months ago. Nothing was heard from them until a fortnight ago, when I received a bill for Lm288.01 to be settled within 15 days, failing which Enemalta would cut the electricity supply in our new flat. I felt there was nothing else to do but pay up.

Yes, I tried to contact one of our MPs, who happens to be a minister and explain this injustice, but with the general election a long way off, contacting your MP now for some advice is like looking for a needle in a haystack.