About 80 non-Maltese residents have taken legal action against ARMS, alleging that the government agency responsible for collecting payments of utility bills is discriminating against them.
The gist of their grievance is that ARMS is dragging its feet when asked to confirm that non-Maltese residents qualify for cheaper utility bills by accepting that their residence qualifies for ‘residential’ rather than the 30 per cent more expensive ‘domestic’ rates.
The allegation of discrimination gets more complicated when, according to Patricia Graham, spokeswoman of the action group, several landlords renting out properties to non-Maltese residents are apparently not declaring their income. By doing so, they are making it difficult for their tenants to claim entitlement to the cheaper utility rates.
Ms Graham said: “Several landlords don’t pay any tax on their rental properties and don’t want their cover blown. And if people are happy with the property, they don’t want to upset their landlords.”
So the vicious circle of discrimination aided by reluctant connivance of the victims becomes more difficult to eradicate.
The non-Maltese residents claim that ARMS resorts to bureaucratic delaying tactics to accept that they are in fact bona fide residents and thereby qualify for residential tariffs. While ARMS is satisfied with the presentation of an identity card by indigenous Maltese as proof of residence, it demands more stringent evidence from non-Maltese residents.
The claim that ARMS usually takes “one week” to process applications for residential tariff rates is strongly contested by residents who spoke to The Times.
One such resident said that ARMS had taken months to process their application and that the bill they received while waiting was charged at the higher rate. Another non-Maltese resident labelled ARMS claim as “absolute rubbish”.
The Government resorted to even more bureaucratic waffle when it said that non-Maltese residents’ identity cards “only prove temporary residency”.
It is, therefore, not surprising that non-Maltese residents have alerted the European Commission, MEPs and Maltese MPs about this blatant discrimination.
The European Commission has flagged the issue with the Government “sending a letter of formal notice concerning the matter last September”.
An apparently insignificant issue has opened a can of worms that reveals how consumers’ rights are often treated with contempt by some public entities.
Why should a local consumer, irrespective of his country of origin, be treated in a discriminatory way in an EU member state where all citizens rightly expect to enjoy equal rights?
Why are landlords who are earning money by letting out their properties to non-Maltese residents being allowed to get away with not paying their fair share of tax on their income?
Why do local estate agents that are so aggressive when selling their services to non-Maltese clients claim ignorance of the local utility services charging system?
Malta’s name has suffered badly enough in recent weeks as a result of a series of unfortunate events that have projected a rather negative image of the Maltese in the EU.
In a small country like Malta there are rarely any events that attract the attention of the international media. The last things we need are incidents that tarnish our image by depicting us as a country of dishonest, discriminating or tax-evading individuals, even if we all know that this is an unfair caricature of the truth.
The Government needs to treat the grievances of the non-Maltese residents relating to utility tariffs and other similar issues speedily and provide a remedy if discrimination is indeed evident.