The criticism by the Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat in Parliament yesterday regarding new water and electricity tariffs was based on the wrong calculation that the rates introduced by the government appeared as a surcharge under the old system of more than 190 per cent, the Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications said yesterday.

This was a fantastic figure and it was no surprise that Dr Muscat did not publish the arithmetics that led to that percentage, the Ministry said.

For example, when Dr Muscat calculated the cost for a residence to hire a three-phase service, he had exaggerated his estimate by more than four times. The Ministry added that the Opposition Leader's advice to the government to implement the change in tariffs as had been proposed by the Labour government in 1997, showed how misinformed Dr Muscat was.

This was evident when Dr Muscat said that the government did not mention the price of fuel that had led it to the new tariffs.

But the Ministry said that this was absolutely not true and this could be confirmed by members of the MCESD, journalists who attended various press conferences and the MLP exponents who attended an information meeting on the matter.