Leader of the opposition Joseph Muscat yesterday called on Finance Minister Tonio Fenech to investigate whether the instructions written for the software used by Arms Limited reflected the legal notice on tariffs.
Winding up the five-hour debate on the opposition motion for the Auditor General to investigate Arms Ltd and the smart meter contract, Dr Muscat told the Minister that he was not making any allegations but was making the statement with responsibility. He did not elaborate further but said the company supplying the software, IBM, did what it had been requested to do.
Dr Muscat said that the Arms billing debacle showed that government philosophy was that of making life “easier for the bureaucrat but harder for the citizen”. The consumer was paying through its nose for the inefficient system adopted by Arms. Had the company worked in a competitive market it would have been declared bankrupt and closed. The employees were frustrated because they wished to deliver good service while having to face angry clients.
Arms Ltd was not giving value for money. Mr Fenech had admitted that the agency’s expense was factored in the utility bills. The chairman’s only qualification was that he was a person close to Minister Gatt.
Dr Muscat the government could not justify what was unjustifiable in such a mediocre situation. The Prime Minister and many government MPs were absent during the minister’s speech, showing that they had abandoned him.
Dr Muscat spoke about the smart meter contract and said that the minister did not react to the accusation of lack of monitoring in its adjudication, especially when there was only one tender and the situation became more complex as regards benchmarking.
The leader of the opposition chastised the Malta Resources Authority on the billing issue. Instead of being a regulator it was a ghost on this issue. One had the right to know why the MRA remained silent on the increase in utility rates but had spoken with immediacy on the rise in gas prices. This was not acceptable.
The MRA had a duty also to investigate correspondence by Arms Ltd which showed that there was no indication and consumers were going to be informed of the mistakes committed.
He again referred to the incorrect billing which the government claimed did not exceed 2,000 consumers. The point was not whether 2,000 or 5,000 clients were affected but that had it not been for the opposition which sparked the whole issue, things would have remained unchanged.
Dr Muscat referred to the correspondence tabled earlier by the minister and said that the minister himself was unconvinced to the point that during the day his secretariat had asked IBM’s local representatives for clarification.
He advised the minister to check other correspondence at Arms Ltd where the figure of 2,000 was being contested and some were saying that it was much higher. The point was not whether 2,000 or 5,000 clients were affected but that had it not been for the opposition which sparked the whole issue, things would have remained unchanged.
He added that such mistakes should be taken care of and corrected by the system itself. He told consumers and Arms Ltd personnel to check on bills. Arms Ltd had lost all credibility.
Dr Muscat said that no action would have been taken on the legal letters sent had not the opposition raised the issue. He asked who was responsible for deciding that €12 had to be paid as administrative costs when EU legislation prohibited anything more than the administrative cost of the letter. He called on MRA to investigate this issue.
Dr Muscat declared that the opposition would not provide further information in order to protect the whistleblower because the way Mr Charles Magro had been treated showed what the government’s real intentions were.
The government was forced to agree to part of the opposition’s motion in that the Auditor General was to investigate Arms Ltd. The minister had admitted that the company’s management would answer to the Public Accounts Committee. If this was so, why did the government object to people involved in the BWSC contract to answer questions put by PAC members, asked Dr Muscat.
Why did the government object to the Auditor General from investigating the smart meter contract and from accepting that Arms Ltd present a billing action plan up to 2012?
Concluding, Dr Muscat underlined that the government had lost all credibility on the issue.