Updated 4.50pm, adds PL statement

The Nationalist Party has called for individuals who have been overcharged for water and electricity to join a class action lawsuit against utility billing company ARMS.

The PN has set up a website where people can sign up to become part of the claim or, alternatively, they can visit the political party's Pieta headquarters Dar Centrali.

Details were announced by MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and Ryan Callus during a news conference, in which they also said the party would pay costs associated with bringing the case.

It came a day after PN leader Bernard Grech said the party would initiate a legal challenge over overbilling in water and electricity rates. 

A draft report by the Auditor General found overbilling by ARMS, the company that bills customers for water and electricity, was costing consumers €6.5 million in “extra charges”.

“Even our own former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat knew about these extra charges, and yet years have passed, and people are still suffering from this injustice,” Sammut said.

“If people want to get their money back, the only way they can do so is by going to court.”

Sammut referred to a court judgment in July, where ARMS was found to have breached the law when it issued bills for two clients on a pro-rata basis rather than on an annual cumulative consumption basis.

The court ordered the utility company to revise their account from 2017 and refund the two clients the amount they were overcharged. 

Back in January, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said a new ARMS billing system would be introduced to address the problem, yet Sammut said no further information has been provided on the new system.

Sammut said the party is taking the initiative – opening a class action- to bring justice to those who have been overpriced on their utility bills.

“As a party we want to give people the opportunity, through this class action, to go to court and get their money back,” he said.

He said that those who are interested in registering should do so “as soon as possible”, and individuals will be contacted to bring their bills to Dar Centrali to calculate how much they have been overcharged. 

Last year, the PN launched a campaign to refund overcharged utility bills, which saw hundreds of people turning up at the PN headquarters with their electricity bills to calculate how much people were being “robbed”.

These people will also be contacted to join the class action suit. 

Sammut said the PN will accept bills up until 2021. 

Callus accused the government of stealing from its people as it knows the mechanism is wrong.

“If you know a mechanism is wrong, and you repeatedly admit that it is wrong but do nothing about it, that is stealing from the people,” he said.

How does ARMS bill its customers?

ARMS Ltd issues bi-monthly bills using a staggered calculation system. The first 2,000 units of electricity are charged at one rate and further consumption at higher rates.

For every kWh of the first 2,000kWh consumed in a year, residents should be charged 10.47c and then pay 12.98c for every kWh for the next 4,000Wh, 16.07c per unit on the next 4,000kWh, and so on.

However, ARMS splits up this allocation pro rata according to the number of bills a consumer receives in the same year. This means that if a residence is billed every two months, the first 2,000 units are split between six bills, amounting to an allocation of 333 units per bill at 10.47c per unit.

If a residence consumes fewer than 333 units in a two-month billing period, the remaining units at the cheaper rate are not brought forward to the subsequent bills. The allocation is therefore lost.

PN lacks credibility in sector - PL

In a statement, the Labour Party said the PN lacked credibility in the sector.

It said the party was going to court regarding a system that had been implemented in 2009 when it was in government. And the current government was changing this system with the changes being backdated to January 1.

The current government, the PL said, had reduced bills and implemented a policy to ensure stability at a time when families in other EU countries had been burdened with record fuel and electricity bills.

Had this not been done, families in Malta would be paying around €1,700 more on energy per year.