ARMS chief executive Wilfred Borg has not resigned his post at the utility billing company despite being asked to do so by the Government on Friday evening.

There have been many complaints about the company’s performance

Mr Borg was asked to leave after it transpired that ARMS had passed on incorrect information to the social security department, which resulted in reduced energy benefits being issued to clients.

His refusal to resign came as police were called in to investigate a separate case on Friday evening when public officials were alerted to unusual activity at the Blata l-Bajda offices of ARMS.

The Energy Ministry yesterday confirmed police found that CCTV cameras and the alarm had been switched off.

The tip-off came as Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi was preparing to go public with a statement calling for Mr Borg’s resignation.

The Energy Ministry said it opened an internal investigation to establish why the security systems were switched off.

Mr Borg yesterday refused to comment and a ministry spokeswoman confirmed the Government was “still waiting” for the chairman to tender his resignation.

The call for resignation was prompted by questions sent on Friday morning by The Times to the Social Solidarity Ministry on complaints by clients who received reduced energy benefit vouchers for April.

The Social Solidarity Ministry later confirmed that more than 3,000 beneficiaries had received reduced benefits as a result of the wrong information supplied by ARMS.

The Government has defended its call for Mr Borg’s resignation, saying the latest mistake by ARMS followed a series of other mistakes by the billing company.

“There have been many complaints about the performance of ARMS, one of the entities that caused a lot of hardship to people through inefficiency and bad practices under the previous Administration,” the spokeswoman said, adding the Government was committed to change things so that ARMS met the expectations of its clients and shareholders.

ksansone@timesofmalta.com