An elderly acquaintance informed me the other day that he had ordered his usual gas cylinder from a street distributor and the distributor had charged him no less than €2 to carry the cylinder up a flight of stairs. This, after the distributor had roughly demanded that the old man bring down the empty cylinder. My acquaintance refused because of the fragile state of his health.
He also told me he had contacted Liquigas to check the veracity of this and they confirmed there was no fixed tariff for this carriage.
I doubted this statement, convinced that somehow he had muddled the matter up, so I decided to check with Liquigas myself.
Unbelievingly and incredibly enough, the customer service person confirmed that this was so! The excuse was that distributors are self-employed and therefore Liquigas has no jurisdiction over them. In simpler language, if the distributor decides that he wants to demand €10 to carry a cylinder up a flight of stairs he is empowered and entitled to do so.
And where does that leave thousands of aged pensioners, the sick, the physically impaired and all those who do not have the strength to carry such heavy cylinders?
It leaves them exactly in the merciless and grasping clutches of a band of distributors who are generally downright embarrassingly rude, uncouth and seem to have the minimal and merest fragment of human compassion.
This certainly is a fine state of affairs, made even more tragically laughable when the Liquigas website proclaims the following:
“What is Liquigas responsible for at the moment?
As from February 1, 2009, Liquigas Malta Ltd. has taken over the distribution and marketing of LPG from Enemalta Corporation, whose Gas Division still stores and bottles liquefied petroleum gas in cylinders and bulk service on behalf of Liquigas. Liquigas is currently studying market needs and working towards introducing new services in Malta.”
Well, well – new services indeed!
However, I suggest they change the last line to now read “towards introducing new disservices in Malta”.
May I also ask Liquigas what requirements it requests from prospective cylinder gas distributors. Is there included, for example, the ability to give good customer service, to be polite, not to abuse people, etc?