Saturday, 7th November 2009
Water and electricity rates
Costs amounting to €85.6m to be borne by consumers
Hike set for January but margin unknown
Households and commercial consumers will be paying higher water and electricity rates come January 1 but the increase remains a mystery as the government did not publish the revised tariff bands yesterday.
The Infrastructure Ministry said last night Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation had filed a request with the Malta Resources Authority for an increase in tariffs, which would come into force next year. However, the scale of the revision was not announced "on the direction of the MRA".
The public will only get to know by how much their bills will rise when the MRA approves the tariffs.
From past experience it has taken the authority weeks and even months to approve the public utility companies' tariff revisions. Last year, the tariffs introduced on April 1 were published by Enemalta in March and approved by the authority in May.
The ministry said the upward revisions were required to make good for increased operating costs, primarily the rise in the price of oil, which represents 62 per cent of all Enemalta's expenses. Forecasts showed that fuel oil was expected to cost more in 2010 than it did in October 2008 when the new tariffs were introduced for the first time, it added.
The total increase in costs for Enemalta and WSC to be borne by consumers is expected to be €85.6 million. Of these, €74.9 million are attributable to higher oil prices and €10.7 million to investments in the new sewage treatment plants, the smart meter system and the new power station at Delimara.
The higher cost of oil also includes a €21.5 million shortfall the corporation is expected to register at the end of 2009 because tariffs did not cover increasing oil prices.
Last April, the new tariffs were intended to raise €254.2 million in revenue to cover the corporations' costs. Adding €85.6 million to that amount means consumers would have to fork out €339.8 million to cover next year's increased costs. This is almost €35 million higher than the total cost intended to be recovered from consumers when the tariffs were originally introduced in October 2008.
The ministry said the government would continue to subsidise bills for low-income earners through an energy benefit. The sewage sector, it added, would also continue to be "heavily subsidised".
In May, Minister Austin Gatt admitted that the increases in the water and electricity rates should have been introduced in January 2009 rather than October 2008.
With the latest tariff increases it seems he has learnt the lesson of not introducing back-dated tariffs but the decision not to publish the proposed hikes may very well present another one to the learnt.
The electricity tariffs were cut by 22 per cent for households and by up to 26 per cent for commercial and industrial consumers in April.
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Comments
Having said that, i must tell you that you have missed a very important and scarosant point in your reply of how serious businessmen conduct their business, IF they still want to remain in business, due to fierce competition, in any kind of business..
To be simple, they must ALWAYS make good in their reserves for a `Rainy Day`.. This way they can always remain competitive and thus will not loose their businesses or any of their customers..
Yes Mr. Gauci... That`s how smart and serious businessmen run their businesses, and NOT by MANAGEMENT BY CRISES system, (like your lame example), and as what EneMalta`s Management seems to have done since 1987, when then it was making profits...!!!!
Consequently, the WHOLE POINT is this..... WHY should we all suffer SO HEAVILLY for such mismanagements of our parastatal companies and with NO ONE assuming political accountability, for ALL these PN Years in government.......!!??!!??
Hope you understood better now....!!!
La johrogg Joe Muscat bi stqarijja li jekk jitla hu s-CEO (l-isfel) jaqilaw 10K Euro fis-sena biss nibda nemminkhom li intom qed titkelmu bis-serjeta meta titkelmu fuq dawn il-pagi.
Dawk il-pagi ma huma xejn hdejn ohrajn (Marisa Micallef Leyson - as reported, Joe Muscat mhux 40K Euros ta, just biex tghidlu kif jirbah l-elezjoni) ahseb wara to manage a huge corporation like that kemm suppost taqla. Morru saqqu l-hass ghax ma tafux x'qed tghidu.
Foldiri skond inthom (ideajat ta mohh miftuh) if you add up those wages and sack those people, then the corporation would have enough money to cover millions of Euro cost?
Stop speaking through your back sides, and for once use your brains not your appendix to come up with sensible arguments.
@N.Bonello
Going on a web site and findng the cause of our real problems in one second makes you a candidate to become CEO for this corp. I bet you know nothing about how oil is purchased, from what markets, etc.. and in one sec you exposed the real conspiracy that oil is down.
I don't like paying more for power as much as you do, but ignorance irks me.
yes there is another choice the government must stop wasting our money by letting big
businesses get away with murder avoiding paying vat and taxes and throwing money
away on renzo piano and millions on sensara for the new power station
The following graph shows the world price of Oil over the years - http://futures.tradingcharts.com/chart/CO/M
It is true that there was a dramatic jump in oil prices in 2008 but went down as the recession came in. The dramatic jump also occurred in oil products and power prices worldwide. But when oil went down the world trend was that oil products and power costs ALSO went down. In Malta they continued to rise further ? This same economic phenomena happened with food prices.
Well I cant understand it really. What I do see is a massive exercise by Enemalta to prepare the path for privatisation with massive costs of undersea power cables from Italy and these new IBM meters (which we have to buy/pay for) and its inherent infrastructure. All of this at OUR cost then when everything is in place Enemalta will be sold for a pittance. Then the new owner will then increase prices. This is my vision 2015 - mismanagement all the way.
As you know, I rarely agree with you. However, confronted with such details, I tend to agree with you. Exposing their wages is one of the best ways to make pressure on such people.
@Paul Caruana costs haven't gone up that much, not with the USA dollar falling and oil prices are still very much at a reasonable level (very far away from $150 hit last year). Fact is we can't go on like this and there has to be accountability. To me this is a failure of the government to delivery and the minister in charge should resign.
All this costs money, which the goverment can recoup in one of two ways...from the taxpayer, or from the consumer - there really is no other choice!
Chief Executive Officer = €81,550 per annum
Annual Communication Package €908
Car Allowance €582 per month
Insurance €2,330
Total €91,772 per year or €7650 per month
Chief Financial Officer = €60,564 per annum
Annual Communications Package €908
Car Allowance €582 per month
Annual Responsibility Allowance €2,330
Insurance €2,795
Total €73,581 per year or €6,132 per month.
Chief Information Officer €45,590 per annum
Annual Communications Package €908
Car Allowance €582 per month
Insurance €2,330 per year
Total €55,812
Chief Commercial Officer €41,930 per annum
Annual Communications Package €908
Car Allowance €582 per month
Insurance €2,330 per year
Total €45,750 per pear or €3812.5 per month
Chief Corporate Services and Chief Projects officer bot have same salary and conditions
Salary €37,270 per annum
Annual Communications Package €908
Car Allowance €582 per month
Insurance €2,330 per year
Total €41,090 per year or €3424.17 per month
Why do they have such fantastic salaries and allowances when EneMalta is in such a dire situation? Does anyone consider that EneMalta has been managed successfully or disastrously? Why should people with such salaries also enjoy the other benefits?
This is the inefficiency we are paying for
Do you all think that hedging is so easy? Do you thnk that oil companies will hedge at a time when oil prices fall (as they did at the beginning of the year)? Think again. If they could, oil companies wouldn't sell a drop of oil at low prices. When prices fall, they only sell oil on the spot. No forward buying takes place. People running oil companies aren't stupid you know.
Malta needs to end it's oil addiction and lower it's energy footprint, otherwise these energy bills will cripple you and your economy.
The only real reason why they are increasing bills is so that we pay for the capital investment projects and enormous debts - the latter being the fruit of some 23 yrs+ of nationalist gross leniency and mis-management in managing the country's financial coffers which now you, your children and your grand-children will be burdened for the rest of your lives.
He keeps his profits low purposely not to make any spikes within his customer base and to help some others which he sells his product to, at cost price because they cant afford anything more.
Day 100 of his operation, his supplier send him his next consignment of fuels and bills him 20 cents a ltr.
C.F.O Mike Migri has a choice:
Pass the cost to the consurmer that wants to buy his products at 22 cents or keep on selling his product at 12 cents per ltr.
His cannot just fire people easily , because if he does, he is still required to pay them social benefits. He can choose to increase the cost on other things (tax eleswhere) or he can choose to close shop and not provide a service. What will it be, Sur Mike-ELECTIONS?
Didn`t Dr. Agositino Pio Gatt tell us that the Smart Meter will finance itself in three years with the increased revenue they will record and the abuse they will prevent ?
And why do those who pay their full bills have to finance something from which "smart" talk apart has its main and only aim to monitor minute by minute the consumption and hence recuce the abuse of those who somehow manage to use un-metred units ? As usual it pays not to pay in Malta, as while we would have paid our bills, the unbilled units and the cost of this system, the abusers will only start paying when the system is in place.
And why introduce the smart meters nation-wide rather than targeting abusers first?
Also, why do we have to pay for the unexplainable expenses of Enemalta-branded cars being driven 24/7 around the country even in off-duty hours to make errands, take children to school, go out in weekends, etc ... at times the same cars driven by other family members and not by the abusing employee?
OOOPs sorry, this is NOT a tax if fact we are NOTpaying it from our pockets, OR ARE WE???
WILL GONZIPN EVER STOP TAKING PEOPLE FOR A RIDE (OR SO HE THINKS)!!!
and exorbitent high wages of all the executives of both enemalta and water services
surely dr gonzi and dr gatt must know the damage all this is doing to our economy
all this will snow ball it will kill the manufacturing idustry tourism and most of all
us pensioners unfortuneately we have to wait such a long time for the election
The problem is that taxes have not gone down as promised. The government must lower taxes if subsidies have been removed.
Do Enemalta and WSC cost badworkmanship? What are they doing about this?
Do they have a system to check that workers are not going more than once to do the same job, sometimes as many as three times and not doing the job right. How many man hours and transport costs are wasted because of badworkmanship.
Is this one of the reasons why administation costs are not being checked? It's not fair that whilst some are cheating their employer, we citizens have to pay!
If one doesn't have conscientious workers and system of accountability in place, it's a waste of money to have well paid top management, might as well have a clerk manage Enemalta and WSC, amongst others!
http://www.kullhadd.com/200910311047/Ahbarijiet/ic-chiefs-tal-enemalta-bsalarji-fenomenali.html
The packages exceed the renumeration of the President and the PrimeMinister.
The lease from such highly paid management is to have the company run efficiently and not
pass on the inefficiencies to the general public.
With €74.9 million attributed to higher oil prices, how much of this value are Government Taxes ?
Should an investment of €10.7 million in new sewage treatment plants be forcefully financed by the Maltese consumer or on the basis of EU's Environmental obligations be actually financed by itself ?
So Enemalta's resolve to compensate for its huge inefficiencies by smart meters and a new Delimara power station must be paid for by the Maltese consumer right ?
Meaning obvious Negative Repercussions` effects on:
1. On Commercial `Consumers` = MORE costs on production and service companies and shops of all kinds = MORE expensive products and services for `sale` = LESS purchases...
2. On Household Consumers = LESS Spending money, thus surely exploding the very slow and dangereous Economical Activities going on to-date. = LESS generation of income to government from VAT and various other taxes, etc.. = MORE taxes...!!
Causing:
a. A VERY NEGATIVE AND DANGEREOUS RIPPLE EFFECT TO THE ECONOMY IN GENERAL.
b. WILL SURELY RUIN COMPLETELY ALL OF OUR LITTLE LIFE STYLE WE HAVE LEFT....
SOLUTION = ANNOUNCE THE BUDGET AND... C A L L A N D E L E C T I O N...
Q..R...I...D...T...U...N...A... K...I...S...S...I...R...T...U...N...A... F..A..Q..Q..A..R..T..U..N...A...