This is not an allegation.  I have no facts to bear it out.  I just have common sense.  Something unreasonable and difficult to explain, makes you query all possibilities to find a legitimate answer.

One day you open your ARMS (Automated Revenue Management Services) bill for utilities of water and electricity consumption and find an extra-terrestrial rate of consumption which cannot be explained. 

Complaints are dismissed summarily with the standard reply that the computer is responsible for the readings and nothing can interfere with them.

How can the public be reassured that if a pattern is emerging, as, in this case, of unexplained and totally unreasonable rates - for example, from €4.00 for water for one bill to €210 for the next bill that the system is secure?  For a place that may be a second home or that was unoccupied for most of the time, it certainly raises doubts. 

Of course, a leak is the first cause that may explain it.  But after that is eliminated as the cause, where do we turn to?  ARMS inform you that someone may be stealing your water.  Unlikely.

At the next cubicle, a gentleman is complaining about the exact same issue.  Don’t they see a pattern here?  Does it not strike them as suspicious that these abnormal bills are occurring around them?

When will the public have some rights to have their complaints taken seriously and when will service to customers and clients become a mature responsibility? 

The same goes for banks who have completely trodden over people’s right to have a service that is within reasonable distance and available to those who need it.  Because computers and ATMs have a function, all other functions and roles of the banks have been dismissed as unnecessary.  The extra caution that has been generated because of the grey-listing has impacted individuals and businesses in an excessive manner and clients cannot even receive an explanation when their accounts are frozen.

Online banking, smart meters, objections online, servizz.gov and nothing else.  Social services is like another extra-terrestrial.  You simply cannot speak to or arrange a meeting with an officer.  If it were not for some personal contact who can help you, your case may remain at the mercy of whoever handles your file and repeats the same mistake.  We are talking, for example, about differences in pension rates and I am sure there are others who have issues that need sorting. 

It is all down to servizz.gov and a bunch of emails telling you that your query will be passed on to the relevant desk.

Hospital records sometimes get lost.  It may happen that blood test results never arrive. 

Applications for residence permits seem to fall into a black hole. 

If we are to rely so much on digital and electronic systems, we must ensure that people have access to physical resources where proper service is available from trained staff who also have the power they need to launch an inquiry into your complaint.  Wherever they are patterns emerging of the same complaint then this becomes an issue that even the police may be called in to investigate.  Especially in the very real issue of hacking. 

It is as though staff are ordered to not even look at exceptions. They are provided with the standard reply to give and that is as far as its gets.  That is their pay grade.  The company also knows that the solutions that the counter staff offer are way too expensive to undertake.  For example, if you think you have a faulty electricity meter there is a charge of €70 to have it inspected.  If it is found to be faulty, you will have the cost refunded.  If not, it is your expense.  But when you are trying to find an explanation for an extraordinary bill, then you also have to eliminate a faulty meter.  But why should it just have become faulty now?  On one bill?  Still, you will want to have the meter checked because the company is not offering any other alternatives to you.

There is a point where we must accept that computer systems are not infallible and that there can be human interference.  We cannot just depend on the chance that the crime will eventually be uncovered as it was with the traffic police scam.

It is the duty of all businesses to ensure that their clients are protected and that their issues are listened to with an open mind that does not discriminate and relegate humans to second class citizens after computers.  If it is not intentionally done then they are really naïve to think that all is perfect and consumers are always wrong.

The MCCAA (Malta Competition and Consumer Affair Authority) serves to safeguard consumers’ interests and enhance their welfare but the problem is greater than that when it becomes a mentality and a bad practice.  Companies should be aiming for Best Practice not standard “not my problem” practice.

It is the responsibility of the government to not fail the people.  Why should there be an underclass that works precariously and is exploited?  Why should the police fail women who go to the station and say they are victims of physical abuse?  

Why should children who are hungry be ignored?  What is so irritating about poverty to a government that it does what it can to avoid dealing with it? 

People have been dying in our prison and still nothing convincing is being done to serve the community and offer a proper and safe correctional facility.  The accusations are many and serious.  But there is an attitude of infallibility around our ministers.  Nobody takes responsibility.  Nobody is held to account.  Impunity is the norm.  Nobody resigns.

This is leading to chaos and the weight of living in this fear and dysfunction is impacting our senses on a daily basis. 

Adding to the chaos is the failed national broadcaster and journalists who think they have a right to run campaigns on their own agenda.  PN’s Karol Aquilina was acquitted of any charges in the case brought against him following the report on One News about him breaking the traffic law.  What kind of a state are we living in?  It has been called a Mafia state.  It has been called undemocratic or a regime.  Certainly, our right to information and a balanced media is under threat.

It is really hard to see where the lives of people and their rights begin to matter.  Landlords of the pre-1995 rent law are completely ignored whilst the government protects itself from the consequences of not cancelling this perverted law altogether and finally restoring properties and rights to their owners.  There is a complete reversal of rights from the owner to the tenant.  When government saw that the Courts in Malta and the European Courts were deciding in favour of the owners, they looked at what they can do to throw a complicated, unrealistic, unjust amendment into the system to pervert the course of justice.  Cases are stuck in the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) as the judges are thrown this piece of legislation from the government of Malta that undermines the whole right of people to justice.

It is time for the government, courts, authorities and legislation to protect people and stop treating them like robots or idiots or balancing votes in favour and against action.