Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/594552
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2015 26 Budget day has come and gone and basically pensioners have once again been left in the lurch. The government has not even had the decency to make a real start by introducing the National Guaranteed Minimum Pension (NGMP) of 60% of the national median income for all. So thousands are at risk of poverty if not already in actual poverty. Apparently, people in this country suffer from the illu- sion that our state pension is two-thirds of current pay. This is not so as the artificially low Maximum Pensionable Income (MPI) sets a ceiling for the rate of maximum pension that can be paid. What Malta has is an MPI established in 1981 and which started being 'revised' as from 2004 by the annual COLA increases – representing inf la- tion at the minimum wage level. Today's MPI of less than €18,000 is totally divorced from current income levels. Naturally there is no such ceiling for the pensions enjoyed by our political masters. One must also mention the scandalous provision affect- ing those in receipt of a pen- sion from their ex-employer to which they contributed directly or indirectly. By paying those concerned a social security pension reduced by the amount of service pension, the State is misappropriating a portion of what is legally due and for which contributions have been paid. It should be no surprise that pensioners are far from happy with this Budget. Albert J. Tabone St Julian's Letters Send your letters to: The Editor, MaltaToday, MediaToday Ltd. Vjal ir-Rihan, San Gwann SGN 9016 | Fax: (356) 21 385075 E-mail: newsroom@mediatoday.com.mt. Letters to the Editor should be concise. No pen names are accepted. News • 30 October 2005 Lord Fraser asked to clarify misgivings on Maltese Lockerbie witness Tony Gauci Scotland's Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC, has issued an extraordinary de- mand to his predecessor, Lord Fraser, to clarify comments quoted by the Sunday Times of London last week describing Maltese shopkeeper and key Lockerbie witness Tony Gauci, as "an apple short of a picnic". Gauci was the prosecution's main witness in securing the conviction of bomb suspect Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. Boyd now wants public clarification from Fraser over comments on Gauci, described by the former prosecutor as "not quite the full shilling" and "a slightly simple chap" who could have been easily led. "The position of the Crown before and after 1992, when Lord Fraser left office, has always been that Tony Gauci was a reliable witness," Boyd said. Gauci recognised al-Megrahi in a photo shown to him by detectives at Mary's House, the clothes shop he runs in Sliema. Gauci claimed he had sold al- Megrahi clothes that were later found wrapped around the bomb that exploded Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scot- land, killing 281. Fraser, who issued the arrest warrant for al-Megrahi, said Gauci "was quite a tricky guy, I don't think he was deliber- ately lying but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer." Boyd said the position of the Crown had been that Tony Gauci was "a credible witness. This was also the view formed by the court. The three High Court judges saw and heard Mr Gauci giving evidence and said in their judgment that they found him entirely credible. "They said he was doing his best to tell the truth to the best of his recollec- tion. They gave him particular credit for being always careful to express any reservations he had and for giving rea- sons why he thought there was a close resemblance between al-Megrahi and the man who purchased clothing in his shop." Fraser's comments have been taken very seriously by all parties concerned. Before new evidence surfaced in 1990 of a Libyan link, evidence had pointed to- wards Syrian involvement and a terrorist organization known as the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine General Command. But in 1990, fragments of a Toshiba radio-cassette player hidden inside a Samsonite suitcase were found, and the clothing in which the cassette player had been wrapped was traced back to Gauci's shop. Over the past year however, new allega- tions have suggested the evidence might have been tampered with. A retired senior Scottish police officer claims CIA agents planted one of the fragments of the cassette-player in order to implicate the Libyans. It is also believed tests on the suitcase may have been misrepre- sented to the court. Gauci, contacted last week by MaltaTo- day, said he was not interested in what Fraser had to say: "What matters to me is what the Court said and that's it." Indictments for murder were issued in 1991 against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer and the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, the LAA station manager in Luqa Airport, Malta. At a pre-trial identification parade, Gauci had picked out al-Megrahi and said: "Not exactly the man I saw in the shop... ten years ago I saw him." He pointed at al-Megrahi during the trial at the Scottish court set up in the Nether- lands, saying: "He resembles him a lot." Al-Megrahi was convicted of murder and is four years into a 27-year sentence in Greenock jail. An appeal against his conviction failed but the Scottish Crimi- nal Cases Review Commission is review- ing the case. Fhimah was acquitted. The pensioners' mirage A double whammy from ARMS As all of us know, to our cha- grin, ARMS sends us six two- monthly bills in the year. Two of these are "actual " electricity bills, where the bottom line is a precise reading whilst the other four are mere estimates. On each of the bills it sends out, ARMS decides whether the customer is entitled to an eco- reduction. Let us suppose a household has a quota of 100 units every two months. If in any of the two months covered by one of the six bills, consumption exceeds this quota of 100 units, then the household is not entitled to this eco-reduction. If the billed household con- sumes less than its quota, or the exact quota itself, it then is entitled to the eco-reduction. This eco-reduction entitles the household to a 25% reduc- tion on the billed amount. Therein lies the rub. What right has the billing company, then, on the basis of the four bills that are mere estimates, to decide whether a household is entitled to the eco- reduction or not? An estimate is an estimate, by any other name. Which is the actual name that the company has given to these four bills of the six sent during its financial twelve months. Let's go back to that house- hold with the quota of 100 units every two months, with the quota that entitles the house- hold to the eco-reduction. What if the company sends an estimated reading (covering two months) showing that con- sumption was 105 units when in fact it was 99 units? How would the household have known that its precise consumption for the period in question was 99 units? From the smart meter installed. So in the example just given, the company deems that the household is not entitled to the eco-reduction when in fact the smart meter says otherwise. To the company, its estimated bill carries more weight than the customer's actual reading as indicated by the very meter installed by the company itself ! The very meter the company christened as "smart"! But this is not the end of the game ARMS is playing with its customers. Before the compa- ny's managerial shake-up (OK, shake-out) hard on the heels of the March 2013 change in government, eco-reduction was calculated on the basis of the company's whole twelve months of its financial year. And not on the two months covered by each of the six bills now sent out by the company. And that is the second whammy. In the example given, since the family was entitled to a quota of 100 units every two months, then before March 2013 it would have been entitled to 600 units for the whole year. What advantage did the consumer have before March 2013 which was taken away from him after the said managerial shake-out? The consumer then, not now, had a whole year to monitor the consumption. If in the four winter months consumption ex- ceeded the 200 units (parcelled out to him under the current system) there was the likeli- hood in the succeeding months to consume less than the quota allotted to him for the whole year. So, if in the four winter months, the household in the example consumed more than 100 units for each of the two months each of the bills now covers, under the current sys- tem the household would lose out twice on being entitled to the eco-reduction. But in the former system (be- fore the shake-out) the house- hold would lose out on benefit- ting from the eco-reduction only if it consumed more than 600 units for the whole year, irrespective of its consumption during the period covered by the individual bills it received before year's end. What it then would lose on the roundabouts, it would gain on the swings. As it is now, what one doesn't gain on the roundabouts, one would lose on the swings. And that is where the double (barrelled) whammy hits the customer point blank. Knowing the Spaghetti- Western attitude of the head honchos on any totem pole remotely linked to government since March 2013, I'll bet my silver bullet ARMS will stick to its guns despite an apparent f louting of consumer-protec- tion law. Shouldn't then the consumer- protector Minister Helena Dalli step in to wet ARMS's powder? Yes, minister. Hasn't ARMS in its charming, disarming ways, got us over a barrel (or two), as it rif les our pockets? Joe Genovese Birkirkara A message against animal abuse With reference to the report 'Horse-whipper cleared of animal cruelty' (21 October), there is no excuse for viciously beating a horse, as video evi- dence shows that Elton Saliba was doing. The man could have simply walked the horse out of the stall or picked up the child who had apparently wandered into the horse's space. There is no ex- cuse, either, for the court's com- placent response to this cruelty. I have visited Malta and seen the bone-thin horses mercilessly forced to work on steep hills. A conviction and appropriate sen- tencing in this case would have sent a strong message that ani- mals deserve to be treated with compassion and respect and that abusing them will not be toler- ated. Ingrid E Newkirk, Managing Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Foundation