Finance Minister Tonio Fenech challenged Labour leader Joseph Muscat to name the person who, he claimed, decided that those overcharged for their electricity meter rental should not be refunded unless they complained.

Dr Muscat on Friday said customers were billed double for the rent of their water and electricity meters because they were incorrectly charged non-residential rates. When the management at ARMS Ltd realised what had happened, a decision was taken to only give refunds to those who complained.

Reacting to Mr Fenech’s challenge, the Labour Party said the government would have to wait for tonight’s parliamentary debate on the opposition’s motion to discuss ARMS for more details on the “institutionalised theft” case.

Speaking during a Nationalist Party activity in Żebbuġ yesterday, Mr Fenech insisted ARMS personnel had immediately taken action to refund overbilled clients when a mistake in the billing system was noticed last month. He insisted that Dr Muscat’s claim – that ARMS tried to hide a billing mistake to the detriment of 5,000 families – was unfounded.

Mr Fenech denied the claims and challenged Dr Muscat to reveal who had taken the decision he referred to.

The PL said that had Dr Muscat not pointed out the “institutionalised theft”, it would have remained hidden. For the past weeks, the government had been more interested in hiding its incompetence than investigating the irresponsibility that led to the billing mistake. Therefore, the PL said, the government could afford to wait another 24 hours until the parliamentary debate on ARMS tonight.

Mr Fenech reiterated that a billing error was spotted following a complaint made by a client on October 15 that his rental charge was incorrect. Upon analysing the system, the staff realised that a total of 2,119 accounts were found to be incorrect, 1,225 of which had already been billed. The problem was fixed and the necessary arrangements were made to refund the clients.

Mr Fenech said that, during the Xarabank debate last Friday, Dr Muscat had accused the Prime Minister of being a liar. Yet, during the same event, Dr Muscat said there were 8,600 patients waiting for hip and knee replacement surgery when, in reality, there were 359 people waiting for a hip operation and 1,900 patients awaited knee surgery.