Almost 2,000 people responded to the PN's call to submit their electricity bills for verification, the party told The Malta Independent.

In May 2021, the Nationalist Party had called on the public to register their utility bills with them as the party sought to address "the unjust way" in which water and electricity bills were being formulated.

This newsroom asked the party for the total number of people who came forward, and whether the PN intends on launching a class action court case on the matter on their behalf.

"The government should immediately refund customers who continue to face institutionalised theft in their electricity bills, something that has been happening for years under the Labour government," a PN spokesperson said in response.

"This should be done, not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because citizens urgently need help in the fight against rising cost of living. The PN has long been calling for the government to stop this institutionalised theft in electricity billings and has vowed to refund all customers once elected to government."

"Almost 2,000 people have responded to the PN's call for people to submit their electricity bills for verification. Our study confirmed that most bills are being wrongly calculated to the detriment of customers, something the National Audit Office has also confirmed."

"The NAO in both May and November of last year confirmed that customers were being overcharged around €6.5 million per year. Although the NAO's analysis showed that 46% of the total analysed accounts found a variance of less than €2 between current pro-rata and annualised billing methodologies, 32 out of the 85 electricity accounts reviewed registered a difference of 'between €10.74 and €468.90,'" the spokesperson said.

"The PN has not filed a class action court case since a number of citizens have already filed court action that remains pending. However, the PN will continue to end this theft, revert to annualised billing and refund customers for what was stolen from them," the spokesperson said.

"This will also assist with the rising cost-of-living for which the government has provided no solutions."

A legal challenge was mounted by two consumers in 2019, who are arguing the calculation of their bills on a pro-rata basis rather than an annual one was leading them to be overcharged by ARMS, the state utilities billing arm.  

The government has argued that the method with which the country calculated the utility bills is based on a law that was enacted under the Nationalist Party when it was in government.

"In his conclusions, the Auditor General was clear when stating; 'Practices adopted by the utilities' corporations and ARMS have always been based on a pro rata basis' and that 'all workings were found to be correct,'" the Energy ministry had said in November. "In his report, the Auditor General says that with the annualisation billing methodology, heavy consumers would benefit more whilst the more responsible consumers would be affected negatively," a statement by the ministry read. "The Auditor General wrote that; 'more in-depth studies are required as quasi favouring the heaviest peak consumers would deviate from the fundamental polluter pays principle.'"

Energy Minister Miriam Dalli had warned at one point that annualising electricity bills for businesses could end up costing commercial operators by removing a progressive scale that reduces electricity tariffs.

The government had said that it will be announcing a new system that is fair for everyone without impacting any client negatively.

"The need for well-thought-out solutions which are not based on populism are reflected in the position already adopted by this government when, in the Budget for next year, it declared that a new system will be announced. This system would be fair without negatively impacting any clients, " a statement by the ministry in November read.