The rate of mistakes in the migration of water and electricity bills to the new system between January and October was 5.3%, Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt said in Parliament today.
He stressed that the current problems with regard to the billing of water and electricity did not stem from the setting up of Arms Ltd but the billing system.
He said that the situation had been such that Enemalta was losing a total of €23 million annually because some 7% of supply was not billed.
The new smart grid system, which the government had selected instead, would detect any meters which had been stopped, or others which had been tampered with.
The new system, which includes the installation of Smart Meters, cost about €66 million, which would be recovered in three years.
Dr Gatt said the new system would mean more accurate metering and billing, removing once and for all the need for ‘estimate’ bills.
It also enabled consumers to be in better control of their consumption.
The smart meters contract was awarded to IBM, SAP, Enel and Skada, the minister explained.
IBM was the only company to submit a final bid for its part of the contract and PriceWaterhouseCoopers were engaged to establish the fair and reasonable market cost.
The migration of accounts to the new system started in February and was validated by KPMG in an effort by Arms Ltd to avoid mistakes but unfortunately, and inevitably, mistakes in such a massive operation were made.
Between January and October, 889,117 bills were issued. Reversals amounted to 47,841, a failure rate of 5.3%. This, Dr Gatt said, was the extent of the problem.
Dr Gatt acknowledged that public interfacing between Arms Ltd and the public was not good, and the Prime Minister was right to apologise, he said. But it was also wrong to politicise mistakes caused during an important transition to a modern and transparent system.
Labour MP Michael Farrugia said the bills were supposed to be issued accurately and regularly every two months, but this was not happening, and the people were suffering. He said the company was insensitive to the people when it closed its Valletta office and moved its customer care to Luqa, which was inconvenience to many.