The government’s failure to adequately invest in the electricity infrastructure is the root cause of power cuts being suffered in various parts of Malta, Nationalist MPs Mark Anthony Sammut and David Agius said on Wednesday. 

They also reiterated the PN's call for compensation when outages take several hours.

A series of power outages across Malta and Gozo during the height of a heatwave left people in the sweltering heat and darkness on Monday and Tuesday, with the issue persisting in a number of localities on Wednesday morning. 

Agius said MPs had heard reports of people who took desperate measures to stay cool while their homes were deprived of electricity. 

“We were told the elderly had to be carried up multiple flights of stairs because they couldn’t use lifts, some people tried to sleep in their airconditioned cars or at the airport terminal because the heat was unbearable and many families had to throw away all of their food because they remained without power for many hours,” Agius said. 

“Because of a lack of planning, people are being kept in the dark and in the heat, this government has brought the energy sector to its knees.” 

Sammut said that despite the Labour government promising a regeneration of the energy sector in 2013, summer power cuts had become a “ritual”. 

He also recalled that Energy Minister Miriam Dalli had promised that power cuts would decrease drastically and on the one-off occasion that a power cut did happen, the time it took to restore electricity in the affected areas would be shortened. 

“I will let people decide for themselves whether this standard has been achieved,” Sammut said. 

He stressed that none of the outages should be blamed on Enemalta workers, who, he said, were making great sacrifices in intolerable heat to restore power, but rather on the politicians who expected workers to perform miracles on infrastructure that has not received the upgrading it required to cater for the increasing population and development. 

“They had money to invest in their friends, the likes of Steward and to top up the salary of some minister’s wife, but when it comes to investing in our critical infrastructure, they’re only going to invest €15 million over six years. We cannot afford to wait six years when our network is on its knees,” Sammut said. 

“While the Labour Party is bogged down by internal disputes, the people have to face the consequences, we are paying the price for the incompetence, overspending and corruption of this government.” 

The PN, he continued, is proposing that an automatic compensation process be introduced to support those who suffer long power outages or who experience unstable voltage in their homes for a number of hours.