Adds PL reaction
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has challenged Opposition leader Joseph Muscat to name the person who, he had claimed, decided that people who received a mistaken bill for their meter rental from Arms Ltd should not be refunded unless they complained.
Dr Muscat on Friday said that some 5,000 account holders had received mistaken bills for their meter rental. He added that somebody at Arms had decided that it would only be those who complained who would be refunded.
The Finance Ministry in a statement yesterday said that 1,225 clients, and not 5,000, were wrongly billed by Arms Ltd for their water and electricity meters and refunds would be issued.
Speaking at a political conference this morning, Mr Fenech said that when a client complained on October 15, Arms Ltd quickly realised that this was a system glitch in that this person's tariffs were at the 'residential' rate while the meter rate was for 'domestic'.
It was established that just over 1,000 issued bills had the same mistake and the people concerned were being informed so that they could be refunded.
Mr Fenech asked why anyone at Arms could have decided not to issue refunds, had that been the case. He said he was challenging the Opposition Leader to back his claim by naming whoever was involved.
Mr Fenech also spoke on the Budget and said that should the government have followed Dr Muscat's advice on VAT two years ago, Malta would now have serious financial problems.
The minister said that on November 23, 2008, Dr Muscat had noted that the UK Labour government was reducing VAT and putting money in the people's pockets and he said that the Maltese government should have been doing the same thing.
Yet now the UK had been forced to raise its VAT rate from 17% to 20%, Mr Fenech said.
Malta would have had the same problems had Dr Muscat's advice been followed.
PL REACTION
The Labour Party in a reaction said the 'institutionalised theft' at Arms Ltd had only been confirmed after it was revealed by the Leader of the Opposition, with the government having been intent on hiding it.
Now that the matter had been made public, the government was seeking information from the Opposition. More information would be given tomorrow, when Parliament debates the situation at Arms Ltd, the PL said.