ADPD has demanded the resignation of Energy Minister Miriam Dalli and the Enemalta board and called for an independent inquiry into the power cuts that plagued the Maltese islands during the height of a heatwave. 

ADPD chair Sandra Gauci told a protest outside parliament that the party will be writing to the Auditor General asking him to investigate how funds allocated for an updating of the electricity distribution system had been spent. 

“We want an independent inquiry to understand what mistakes were made, to uncover negligence and for recommendations to be made to address these shortcomings. The inquiry should also identify the people responsible for this preventable situation so that they can be held accountable for the way these issues were not addressed beforehand,” she said. 

According to Enemalta, record-breaking temperatures caused a large number of high-voltage cable faults causing the widespread power cuts of the past 10 days. 

Gauci said that the power crisis had exposed the incompetence of the Labour Party’s governance, which has crippled the country and readied the road for an “unprecedented national crisis”. 

The government, she said had built an economic model on the exploitation of cheap labour that has led to an "unsustainable" situation built on the back of "modern slaves". Powercuts, she said, are only a symptom of this unsustainable practice. 

Participants at the ADPD protest. Photos: Matthew Mirabelli.

The ADPD, she said want an economy based on the digital sector, technology, creativity, sustainability and renewable energy and not one where “we’re still plodding along with mud and trowels”. 

The Planning Authority, Gauci continued, had failed to stop the uglification of Malta and only threw its weight around with those with the powerless, allowing a culture of development at any cost to thrive. 

“Where once a building housed four people, we’ve ended up with a block of 20 families and we’ve stuffed them in there without any consideration for the energy they consume,” she continued. 

“The next crisis will be in the sewage system, which is already showing signs of being unable to keep up in overpopulated localities like St Paul’s Bay, Sliema and St Julian’s,” she warned. 

ADPD General Secretary Ralph Cassar said that power cuts were happening because the government had adopted the mindset that there was no limit to anything, by allowing economic growth from which only the few benefited, under the assumption that resources are infinite. 

“This is the result of carelessness, incompetence and corruption, they have made corruption and energy synonymous,” he said. 

It was useless, Cassar continued, to say that the country had a power generation capacity of 830MW when maintenance of the distribution system has been overlooked.  

ADPD leaders speaking at the Valletta protest. Photos: Matthew Mirabelli.