Labour MP Marlene Pullicino, party spokesperson for the utilities, said GonziPN and ARMS Ltd are one and the same thing, and when Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi speaks of the mediocrity of ARMS Ltd, he speaks of the utter failure his government had given birth to.

ARMS Ltd was set up by the government to process electricity and water bills. It used to operate from Valletta but, Mrs Pullicino said, GonziPN had done nothing about the problem and closed the office to transfer it to Luqa, meaning that customers would have to take two buses to get there.

The Prime Minister, she added, has for two months been saying the office is to be transferred again, to Blata l-Bajda, but nothing has been done yet, and nothing has been said about what precautions are to be taken to avoid traffic accidents as people cross the busy road.

Meanwhile, the Finance, Economy and Investment Minister Tonio Fenech followed in the steps of the Prime Minister and made an apology over the poor customer care services provided by ARMS Ltd.

He said that the poor service was due to a number of factors that happened at the same time. There was the new billing system that needed to be set in place with all its teething problems, the benefit cheques and the allowance cheques that needed to be sent out at the same time. All these created more customer care problems, he added.

In the coming weeks the Luqa ARMS Ltd office will move to Gattard House in Blata l-Bajda and three regional offices are expected to open in Gozo, in the North and the South of Malta to alleviate the pressure on the central office. The locations for the new offices still have to be identified. The staff currently manning the Luqa offices will be moved into the regional offices but more staff will be recruited to reduce the demand from the Luqa central office.