Manuel Mallia’s former right hand man Silvio Scerri has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of ARMS ltd.
Scerri, who announced his appointment on LinkedIn has replaced former public utility billing company CEO John Attard who had resigned last month. Attard was appointed last May but resigned only a few months later. Attard was put on long leave by the Office of the Prime Minster and later submitted his resignation.
A few days ago, Scerri replaced Attard. The CEOs that have been appointed since the utility company was set up in 2010 were always appointed on a position of trust basis and there was no obligation to make a public call for applications. They usually have five-year definite contracts with the company.
Scerri has occupied various high-ranking positions since the election of this government in 20143. He had served as Chief of Staff at the National Security and Home Affairs Ministry when then minister Manuel Mallia lost his portfolio in the wake of the shooting incident involving the minister’s driver in December 2014. Mallia was asked to resign over his handling of the incident, and was later re-appointed as Competitiveness Minister but Scerri was not re-engaged.
In May 2016 Scerri was appointed Chief Enforcement and Security Officer with Transport Malta and two years later he was promoted as Senior Chief Officer of the Malta National Electromobility Platform (MNEP) Directorate and the Enforcement Directorate within Transport Malta.
Before the election of 2013 Scerri was a director of Nexos, but after being appointed Chief of Staff he relinquished his position at the company.
Scerri is the eighth CEO of ARMS Ltd. The first CEO was Wilfred Borg followed by Henry Attard, James Davies, Carmen Ciantar, David Magro, Lawrence Cauchi and John Attard. Seven out of the eight appointments were done under the labour government.
ARMS has been in the cross hairs for some time now, with accusations of billing irregularities under investigation, and Energy Minister Joe Mizzi apparently trying to clean the system after earlier this year issues were raised on ARMS billing more frequently - resulting in higher bills.
Some have called for the bills to be issued every six months, instead o9f every two, so that high consumption may be offset by low consumption resulting in a fairer rationing of the quotas, while others say that if ARMS carries out a reconciliation exercise at the end of the year based on annual consumption, it could rebate customers for any overpayment.
A class-action lawsuit against the billing practice has been launched.