Former Nationalist Minister Jesmond Mugliett made a strong attack on the government during the Arms Ltd debate in Parliament on Monday, saying the people were paying a high price – at €80 million – for the new smart grid system which was not giving them results. The price tag was too high, he said.

With that amount of money, as minister he had built all the roads under the Italian financial protocol and EU funding, as well as a sports centre. The people, he said, rightly wondered whether the government was right to have set up Arms Ltd. He never saw so much concern by the people as this year.

The five per cent failure rate in the billing system appeared to him to be too high. When he was responsible for the introduction of the CVA, he was criticised for a far lower error rate, but it seemed that things were different for some people.

Mr Mugliett said that while the new system was not working as it should, the old system was not all that bad. Other migrations to new billing systems had been successfully made in the past, but then, it seemed that investment on the upgrading of software tailed off.

It would appear, Mr Mugliett said, that people were not given enough training to operate the new software. Had any parallel runs been made between the new system and the old? Was proper filtering made?

The new system was translating into higher water and electricity bills for the people because the costs had been factored in. Those costs included a €700,000 software bill per year for at least four year and a total salary of over €190,000 for four people at Arms Ltd as well as hardware costs, property rental and other costs.

The people, after suffering such a shoddy service, had been faced with arrogance, as the threatening legal letter.

The repeated hitches were seriously worrying the people, Mr Mugliett said. Just as worrying was how nobody had assumed responsibility and the Prime Minister had ended up shouldering the blame and issuing an apology.

Concluding, Mr Mugliett insisted the people deserved sensitivity and a better service.

Robert Arrigo (PN) said that both sides were in favour of the consumer being given a sterling service. It was important that the investment made in Arms is recouped within the shortest time possible.

He said that bills should be issued in time.

Mistakes in meter charges should be eliminated by having them only in final bills and not estimates. The installation of smart meters was expected to take three years and was expected to alleviate the problem by having remote network ­monitoring, warnings and suspensions. The second phase would soon be introduced to have bills charged on actual usage.

Mr Arrigo suggested the company should have a section to cater for heavy consumers like hotels and industry to help them avoid wastage.

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca (PL) said that, in setting up Arms Ltd, the government had set up an inefficient structure with enormous mistakes in utility bills. Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt had called these administrative mistakes. In actual fact such mistakes led to abuse of power. There were consumers who did not know anything about these mistakes and had paid estimate bills so as not to have the electricity supply suspended.

She criticised the government for labelling people who were living at risk of poverty because they had to queue to exchange the energy vouchers. An easier system using computer software could have been adopted. It was not true that 30,000 families were benefitting from these vouchers.

She asked whether the problem of having people queuing at the Luqa office was an administrative software problem as had been indicated by Dr Gatt. She added that it seemed that the members of the Objections Board were anonymous. She mentioned the case of a consumer living in a one roomed household who had been asked to pay €18,000.

Gino Cauchi (PL) said that even government MPs agreed that Arms Ltd was a failure.

The government had, in January, boasted that the migration from the old to the new system had been completed. However Arms employees were still using old computers which foreign technicians had said were too slow. He asked whether it was true that the maintenance agreement with IBM was for only four years, when there were so many problems with the software.

The four handpicked persons in charge were being paid €200,000 annually. They were given the performance bonus when their objectives for 2009 had failed. The government now employed a CEO, at a salary of €85,000 who had no prev-ious experience in the utility sector.

Mr Cauchi said that the government now had rented premises in National Road Blata l-Bajda for €78,000 per year.

Had a risk assessment been made when everyone knew how difficult it was to cross that road?

Estimates which were higher than actual bills could easily block the system. The consumers who complained as yet had not received any apology. In 2009, ARMS Ltd had sent 9,430 suspension letters. Another 1,172 suspension letter had been sent by the end of June.

Evarist Bartolo (PL) said that the government amendment to the opposition was not enough; there was the need for a serious investigation.

Even though IBM was a reputable company, this was no guarantee that everything would be of high quality. In the introduction of Smart meters, it was useless to blame the software when the majority of the problems were resulting from human errors.

Sub-contracting for Smart metres had been given to companies involved in corruption cases abroad. One company in particular was involved with Lehmeyer in the Lesotho ­corruption scandal. Other ­companies were known to bribe politicians. This further ­underlined the need to investigate.

With regards to the interest rate charged by ARMS Ltd on unpaid bills, it was decided that this was to be six per cent without taking into account the various considerations involved. The proposal for a gradual increase in interest was turned down.

Minister Gatt had promised that ARMS Ltd would offer high levels of efficiency and that it would provide an excellent service. This was obviously not the case.

In 2009, it was planned that a pilot project would be undertaken to test the system and correct any mistakes without affecting a large number of clients. This was to be a small scale implementation over a period of between four and six months taking into account 5,000 electricity meters. One had to scrutinise whether this pilot project was done correctly.

It was also planned that citizens would be given the necessary training on how to use these metres and create awareness on the transition from old to new metres, this never took place.

Other speakers were reported yesterday.