The Minister of Health and Energy fails his basic maths test
Konrad Mizzi, Minister for Health and Energy, has written to households telling them that they will be saving “approximately 30%” on their current consumption because electricity tariffs are being cut by around 25% and water tariffs by 5% (leading you to wonder why his boss saw fit to make all that fuss about two cents on petrol).
The Minister fails basic maths, which should make us heave a sigh of relief that he’s not the finance minister. He has taken that 25% off the one and 5% off the other, added them together and arrived at the figure of 30% off everything.
But it doesn’t work like that, and here’s a simple illustration.
Your electricity bill is 100 euros. You get 25% off. So you’ve got to pay 75 euros.
Your water bill is 100 euros. You get 5% off. So you’ve got to pay 95 euros.
Altogether, you have to pay 75 + 95 = 170 euros.
Now look how adding the 25% and 5% together to arrive at the conclusion that it’s 30% off everything does not work out the same, not by a long shot.
100 euros electricity + 100 euros water = 200 euros total. Knock off Konrad Mizzi’s wrongly calculated 30% and you get the figure of 140 euros, which is 30 euros less than the correct sum.
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Bunch of incompetents – the whole lot. Looking at the surveys of Malta Today makes me weep. Our dear PM enjoying such a high trust rating – can anyone explain? Is Malta going nuts ?
Malta is not going nuts, but has long gone away with the fairies.
No need for that, assuming they are the same amounts, the discount is just the average of 25 and 5 which is 15%.
But it’s quite an assumption because there is no direct correlation between your water/electricity consumption so no attempts should be made to quote anything other than 25% for your electricity bill and 5% for your water bill, at least not officially, but certainly averages for the relationship are available.
Mine says 28%, go figure.
I’m not fucking surprised that a pompous, numerically challenged lawyer would flunk this test. It’s a goddamn simultaneous equation.
Let E be your electricity bill
Let W be your water bill.
Let T be the total before Joseph’s Fantastic Discount.
Then T=E+W
Let t be the total after the Discount.
Then t= 0.75E+0.95W
Find t in terms of T.
Fucking morons.
I was thinking of Manuel Mallia. Sorry. Anyway, engineer. Same thing. Or whatever he calls himself.
He’s not an engineer. Wikipedia entry (it is the only thing I found):
“Konrad Mizzi holds an M.A. with Distinction and a Ph.D.from the University of Nottingham. He also holds a B.Sc. from the University of Malta and a Diploma in Finance.”
This person won’t be saving 30% off his bill, he’ll just be saving 25% off his electricity bill and 5% off his water bill.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I feel privileged because the letter I received says that I will be saving 33%. I’ve been trying to figure out why.
You have to hand it to them though. Labour doesn’t make the mistake of underestimating people’s ignorance.
He mixed water with electricity and got a short circuit.
Le Daphne ghandek zball. Dik co incidenza li 25+5 = 30% over all. Hemm ittri li huma ser jiffrankaw 31, 33 34 u 35%.
A weighted average of two percentages can never exceed the larger of the two, at least not unless ‘positive energy’ is rewriting the laws of arithmetic and science.
You might be mistaken here.
I received the same letter, but in my case, although the water and electricity figures are 5% and 25% respectively, my expected saving will be approximately 28%.
It looks as if each letter is customised, based upon actual consumption last year.
Still. It seems that they are a bunch of random numbers (between 25 and 35, as they had promised), unless they state how they came to that conclusion.
If the letters are really customised, they should show the workings based on consumption, otherwise they are just bull.
In any case, isn’t it strange that the letter is sent by ARMS Ltd (in an ARMS Ltd envelope) and signed by the Minister?
5% discount on water tariff is just that. 25% discount of electricity tariff is also just that.
There is absolutely no way that the percentage ‘saving’ in cost could ever exceed the stated rate of discount.
The letter under review was folded in two and inserted in a way that the 30% figure was the first that hit the eye, and so the one that would be remembered.
The maths are intentionally wrong. This is yet one more cheap con trick aimed at squeezing a few more votes for Labour in the MEP election.
Many idiots will no doubt lap it up. When the next water and electricity bill comes in, and the penny drops, the MEP election will be over.
Both to you and jerry: How can you ever save more than the highest discount (25%) being applied on part of the bill?
It is a mathematical impossibility. Someone is clearly trying to take the people for a ride.
Manuel Mallia should take Konrad to Lidl to persuade the cashier that two items at 50% off makes them both free.
This is the best most accurate analogy to Konrad’s thinking anywhere.
And what about the eco-reduction? Is it included in the 25%?
Is-somom ta’ Konrad… Fenomenali.
Jew b’xejn jew xejn. Kliem il-kbir, dak il-mahmug.
We have received the water and electricity bill from October to April. When I worked the amount of water and electricity used during this period at the new rates our next bill should be close to 24% less. [78 euro cents a day less – against €413.00 daily salary to Mrs Mizzi]
Yesterday we received a love letter from Konrad Mizzi which said: “Jekk fuq medda ta’ sena, inti tikkonsma bejn wiehed u iehor -istess ammont il kkunsmajat iis-sena li ghaddiet, tibbenefika minn rohs ta’ madwar 24%.”
Our bill is always between €900 – €1200. Please be informed that eco tax reduction is 0%. Some house holds do get 30% reduction.
Even though a 30% and 5% discount looks very nice each one of us has to calculate our bill finally in euros. In my case I consume around 3500 units per year for electricity and 50 cu water for a family of two so my savings per year will be:
Electricity
Old Rates
Rent – €65.00
Consumption
2000 x €0.161 €322.00
1500 X€0.173 €259.50
Less eco reduction
€322.00 x (25%) (€80.50)
€259.50 x (15%) (€38.93) €462.08
Total €527.08
New Rates
Rent €65.00
Consumption
2000 x €0.161 x 65% €209.40
1500 X€0.173 x 75% €194.70
Less eco reduction
€322.00 x (25%) (€52.36)
€259.50 x (15%) (€29.21) €322.55
Total €387.55
Therefore my savings on Electricity in a year will be €139.53 or €0.382 per day which on percentage terms is 26.47% (€139.53/€527.08)
Water
Old Rates
Rent €59.00
50 units x €1.47 €73.50
total €132.50
New Rates
Rent €59.00
50 units x €1.47 x 95% €69.83
Total €128.83
Therefore my savings on water in a year will be €3.67 or €0.01 per day which on percentage terms is 2.77% (€3.67/€132.50)
Therefore in a year I will be saving €143.20 or €0.3923 per day which is less than 50% of a packet of milk per day.
Well the Minister of Energy needs to go back to his primary education maybe he can learn how to calculate some simple maths.
Just a thought: Can the government acquire your consumption data from the utilities company or would that violate data protection law?
You’re also forgetting that it is the tariff that has gone down and not the fixed charges like meter rental etc so the overall effect will be a lot smaller than 25%.
I received this communication. In an ARMS envelope. Something’s not quite right.
Konrad Mizzi is part of the government that tries to fool us all the time.
He is part of a government that cheats, gvern li jaħdmek. But perhaps they are realizing themselves that the small savings are not worth the hassle they are going to give us with an LNG tanker berthed near our sole power station.
For many low-income families the savings will be less than 50 euros a year. But now everyone must fear a complete blackout for weeks.
To all the readers, it is quite clear that they are still adding the two percentages up, to get the 30, 31, 28, 34, 35% reduction. Otherwise the percentage overall reduction would be expected lower. Somewhere in the middle between 25% and 5%.
I am keeping this little vote catcher on my desk till I get my first bill issued after the MEP elections passes and then find out what Konman means by “approximately 31%”.
Jahasra in-nies qed jimmaginaw li awtomatikament se jircievu 25% off. Mur ghidilhom li hemm min cucata se torhsilhom.
The new reduced rates came one month late, 31st March instead of 1st March, reason being that the economy cannot really support this reduction, so Muscat kept it to as late a date as possible.
The problems commence here. Enemalta is losing 25-30% of its income from domestic billing, while in a year’s time it will be losing it from the commercial and industrial billing too, thus making a loss of 25 to 30% overall.
Considering that the promised new gas PS is off the shelf by months, if not years, the gov/Enemalta are in a fix. The Chinese must be laughing at us, drooling over the possibility of taking over the majority shares of our national service providers, water and electricity.
This is a government of ‘imbaghad naraw’, ‘we’ll see later on’.
The important thing is the vote, which reminds me of Tytler’s prophecy:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the canidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy–to be followed by a dictatorship.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
Apparti dan l-izball, hemm falsita’ ohra, li hadd isu mhu qed jaqbad.
Mizzi qed jghid: Tnaqqis ta’ 25% fuq id-dawl.
Il-Gvern naqqas 25 tat-tariffi tad-dawl.
Imma l-component tal-kont li nhallsu huwa kompost xi 25-30% minnu (fil-medja) mill-kirja tal-meter, li mkien ma ssemmiet li rahset.
Mela allura jekk kont huwa attwalment 100 euro, li minnu 30 euro huwa l-meter, ir-rohs huwa biss fuq is-70 euro. Allura globalment, it-tnaqqis huwa ferm inqas.
Ahseb u ara meta tinkludi l-ilma.
Tant ilhom jghidu li rohos kollox, li n-nies se tuza aktar.
Rizultat: 90% tal-poplu se jispicca jhallas l-istess.
Ara biex twekka l-poplu Malti!
Well mine said 35% which obviously didn’t tally with the 25 and 5%.
Hence the printed 25 and 5 are just figures representing the average percentage reduction across the board.
The percentage declaration towards the particular house has nothing to do with it. As declared:’ are being reduced by an average of’.
This case happened to be 30% which led you to your conclusion. You just need to read it differently: poor grammar misleads as to meaning.
They are personalised. Mine came to 26%. Also note that the 25% reduction is on electricity consumption and not on the bill, so if you receive a €100 bill, the discount is not on the €100 but on the consumption portion only. There is no discount on the meter charge.
What Konrad never said though is that the 25% reduction we used to have on our bills is not being calculated.
I called Enemalta for a clarification on this matter. Actually I always had an eco reduction of 25% on my bills because I try not to use too much electricity.
Now Konrad sends me this paper telling me that I will be having a reduction of 29%, but not a reduction of 29% on the final bill which had the 25% already deducted from the original bill.
To be precise, I will have a reduction of 4% ONLY from my final bill. Now tell me if that is not trying to take people for a ride.
Yes of course, each letter is customised according to how big a Labour diehard you are.
The bigger the diehard, the bigger the percentage off your bill.
It’s not like we haven’t got used to this government by now. Show me your colour, and you’ll be in my very, very, very, extremely, utterly good books. Malta Taghna (tal-qalba) biss.
You people are very unlucky. The note I received from Konrad Mizzi tells me that I will be saving 35%. I hope that will not involve me in the smart meters scandal.
I’m not a mathimatician but I think that even you Mrs. Caruana Galizia got it wrong. Why? The new 25% are not cut off from the gross amount of the electricity consumption bill. It is reduced from the gross amount less the eco reduction which happens to be also 25% i.e. your 100 euro bill less 25 euro (eco reduction)=75euro. It is at this stage that the new tariff percentage reduction comes in the equation and it works out at 18.75 euro not 25 as you indicated. This means that through eco reduction the PN government for every 100 euro consumption gave the consumer 25 euro while JM’s government is giving him 18.75 euro i.e. 6.25 euro less. How deceitfull can JM and Konrad be!!!
Now let’s be really nasty.
25 off 100 plus 5 off 100 = 30 off 200
So that translates to 15%
I have to get technical here, but this is a system of equations where the variables E (electricity bill) and W (water bill) cannot be eliminated.
So for our Konrad to give his final answer, he needs the value of E and W.
Try it yourselves, my accountant brethren. Just set it up on Excel and try a few values of E and W. The total discount (i.e. the percentage difference between T and t) varies according to E and W. It can be as low as 5% or as high as 25%. But never higher.
Precisely.
They must really hate me because mine says 24%
All the letters show 25% and 5% in the upper two boxes, that supposedly representing some sort of average over the whole population.
The figure in the white box below that then represents what the individual receiving the letter will supposedly save.
The precision applied to this calculation must be Alfred Sant’s contribution.
It’s got small-mindedness written all over it.
You’re wrong on this one:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-11-06/news/most-families-to-get-30-reduction-in-utility-bills-3111059456/
The tariff for the first 2,000 units will be reduced by 35%. The tariff on usage of between 2,000 and 6,000 units will be reduced by 25% and the tariff on consumption of between 6,000 and 10,000 units will be reduced by 15%. Dr Mizzi said that utility tariffs for a family of four will be reduced by an average of 27% and almost 90% of families will have their bills reduced by an average of 30%. These prices will remain in force until 2020 and these have already been discussed with Electrogas, the consortium that will build and run the new gas fired power station.
[Daphne – I hate to be a pain, but no, I’m NOT wrong. On the basis of the information contained in that letter, I’m right. It’s the letter, on the basis of the information given here, that’s wrong. Well, deceitful actually.]
On the basis of the information you supply, the average saving on the electricity bill is 25% (35 + 25 + 15 divided by 3). This tallies with the government’s claim of an average of 25%.
For the utility tariffs (water and electricity) to be reduced by the figures you give (27% & 30%). It would have to work out something like this.
The reduction on the water bill is 5%.
For the 27% reduction in utility bills, it would be this:
5% discount on water
49% discount on electricity
(49 + 5 divided by two = 27)
For the 30% reduction in utility bills, it would be this:
5% discount on water
55% discount on electricity
(55 + 5 divided by two = 30)
I got the same letter from ARMS as above claiming that I will be saving on average (across both bills) a figure of 30%. That means I am looking forward to a reduction of 55% on my electricity bill.
Now, have you seen any claims that people will be saving in the region of 50% on their electricity bill? Because I haven’t.
For all the figures and propaganda being bandied about for the savings that people will make, then it would have to be like the examples above because basic mathematics dictates that.
The reality is that I will be saving in the region of 15% on my utility bills (25 + 5 divided by two = 15). The example in Daphne’s article equates to this saving which shows her calculations and observations are actually correct.
Now you may choose to be fooled by political nonsense and newspaper articles that give nothing to back up what has been written, but some of us can actually work it out for ourselves.
If I am wrong, then please supply your own calculations as maths was never my strongest point.
So did ARMs pick up the tab for this obvious pre-electoral ploy?
The envelope is ARMs stationery (with a newly printed “kontijiet orhos” on them) and the letter says jack £&$#! (It’s not a bill)
25% off my electricity and 5% off my water, with total savings of 27% off my next bill! Wow, I will be so much better off! Trid tara jekk jkollix xoghol sa dakinhar! Grazzi Konrad u Jowsef.
Isn’t there a law which makes misleading adverts like these illegal?
Jiena qaluli 33%
Why is the government issuing this propaganda and not the actual bills?
I want to see the bills.
What’s the government hiding?
The Opposition must be calling on the government to issue the bills before the 24 May vote.
Mine is 29%, but still I will be voting for Nationalist Party candidates. Shame on you, Konrad Mizzi.
Thank you for this article – I watched Deborah Schembri on TVM yesterday and she talked so much rubbish about this that I couldn’t take it. Whoever believed her needs to go back to school.
If Konrad`s averages are that bad, imagine what a disaster his calculations for a new power station are or have been by now.