Labour leader Joseph Muscat has accused Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt of not keeping his word on when electricity tariffs would be revised.

Speaking last night, he recalled that Dr Gatt had said that tariffs would be revised every six months or immediately when international oil prices varied by more than 15 percent.

Yet, although, since October, the international oil price had gone down by more than 15 percent, tariffs here had not been revised.

Dr Muscat said Labour had hoped the government would see sense over Christmas and revise the tariffs. But what it did instead was to start sending the bills.

He argued that in terms of the oil price in December, the surcharge should be 35 percent. Yet the people are being charged the equivalent of 185 percent. This, he said, was institutional theft aimed only at helping the government narrow its budget deficit and hide its inefficiencies.

In his comments, on One TV, the Labour leader warned his party against complacency in the forthcoming European Parliament elections. He said the PL is currently going through structural, organisational and cultural change which would lead to a new, progressive movement in the country.