The new water and electricity bills are equivalent to a surcharge of 194 per cent at a time when oil prices are going down, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.
"Someone who consumes €100 worth of electricity will have to pay a bill of €294," he told a huge crowd that attended a manifestation against the tariffs hike.
He said the increase came at a time when the surcharge should have started going down, from 95 per cent in the past months to 61 per cent at the end of October.
Moreover, backdating the new rates undermined the country's credibility. Dr Muscat said that since the bills would be based on calculations, some families will pay for more than they consumed.
"It is shameful theft," he said, adding that tariffs were increased so the government could cover 20 years of inefficiencies.
Insisting that yesterday's event was not a partisan one, Dr Muscat said he will be calling for action to make people's lives easier. In his reply to the Budget Speech in Parliament this evening, Dr Muscat said he will be proposing measures to help those who had the courage to set up their own business. He will also be asking for help so that new graduates can find a good job and decent free health care rather than never-ending waiting lists.
"People want accountable leadership that assumes responsibility for its actions," Dr Muscat said.
"We need a new leadership which acts so that the cost of living does not continue eating out of families' salaries; so that fuel prices do not keep increasing and parents do not have to lower their standard of living to educate their children.
"We need action so that the government is accountable and uses your money properly rather than waste it," he said.
Dr Muscat said people had been promised a lot before the election but were now getting the opposite and the quality of life of workers, small business owners and pensioners was deteriorating.
"I come from a generation that is fed up of the usual politics. Now is the time for the government to work for the people and not the people work for the government," he said.
Referring to the international financial situation, Dr Muscat said Malta was lucky not to have been affected but, rather than take advantage, the government had decided to cause a crisis.
"The government should be putting money in people's pockets and not the other way round," he said.
The General Workers' Union attended the event, which the MLP insisted was a manifestation and not a protest, during which thousands of people walked along Republic Street to the Presidential Palace carrying placards accusing the government of being heartless and describing the budget as lacking a vision.
The other social partners decided to shun the demonstration perceiving it a partisan event.