Customers paying their water and electricity by direct debit will start benefitting from a two per cent discount, it was annouced this afternoon.

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech announced this during a press conerence at the offices of the government utility bills handling company, Arms Ltd, this afternoon

He said that by the end of the month, the company will have its internet portal up and running enabling people to pay online and to access their billing information.

Mr Fenech said that last year was a challenging year for the company as a change to a new billing system led to a serious backlog of work and customer complaints.

The situation improved a lot since then as the maximum waiting time to pay the bill had decreased from 1.5 hours to 35 minutes.

The number of complaints had dropped by 25 per cent and telephone calls were being tackled within four minutes. Most emails, 75 per cent, were replied to within two days and the rest were handled within five days.

About 57,000 smart metres had been installed and refurbishing works to move the offices to Gattard house, in Blata L-Bajda, were about to start.

Asked whether the Arms managers had been paid their performance bonuses for 2010, he said an evaluation had been carried out and those who deserved it were given the bonus.

He stressed that the problems faced by the company were no fault of the management but the result of a range of changes happening over a few months and lack of resources.