A utility billing supervisor being investigated for having used customers’ money to pay his own bills, handled less than €500 police sources said yesterday.

The ARMS supervisor has reportedly admitted to the con and repaid the money in full. Police are nevertheless expected to press charges, although he will receive a court summons rather than being arraigned under arrest.

An Energy Ministry spokeswoman said the case, which reportedly involved multiple transactions throughout 2012, had come to light following reports made by a whistleblower.

The story was broken by timesofmalta.com on Thursday and surprised ARMS employees, many of them describing the man as a good colleague with a friendly, honest character.

A comprehensive review of ARMS, aimed at identifying weaknesses within the management, operational and internal control structures, is expected to be completed within a month.

Aside from pinpointing shortcomings, the review will also make recommendations on how best to address them and identifying key performance indicators on which to base its performance.

“We expect internal controls to be in place for public companies to be able to detect attempts of fraud and misappropriation of funds,” the spokeswoman said.

Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi had his hands full dealing with the beleaguered utility billing company, she added.

“The minister has received many complaints about the performance of ARMS. It was one of the entities that caused people a lot of hardship under the previous Administration because of inefficiencies and bad practices.”

ARMS has already run afoul with the National Audit Office, which, in a report last October, accused it of short-sightedness, criticised its management for refusing to analyse its own customer trends and noted that the company had yet to implement key performance indicators established in 2009.

A company spokesman had contested the findings.

The report also questioned the wisdom of attempting to switch the entire electricity grid onto a smart-metered system in one fell swoop. The switch, originally pencilled in for January of this year, is now expected to happen closer to January 2014.

ARMS has also been roped into a lawsuit initiated by a group of EU citizens alleging discriminatory pricing, saying the company is making it inordinately difficult for them to prove Maltese residency and benefit from lower residential rates.

The company has denied this and said it is simply applying existing legislation.