Sleepless nights, strained staff and damaged reputations are just some of the impacts of the recent power cuts voiced by small and medium enterprises.
“We’ve never had this situation before, it’s quite unprecedented,” said the CEO of the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises, Abigail Mamo.
“There’s a general feeling of anxiousness and an inability to plan,” she told Times of Malta over the weekend.
Over the past week, the chamber reached out to its members to share their experiences of the continued outages. And they were flooded with reports of falling revenue, difficult staff working conditions and tarnished reputations, Mamo said.
An operator in the performing arts sector called the cuts “disastrous”. They had been forced to cancel courses, close their shop and suffered damage to their projector and air-conditioning unit.
A fuel station owner said they had been forced to fork out €700 after one of their pumps suffered damage.
Equipment faults – often linked to power surges when electricity returned – also caused headaches for after-sale staff servicing appliances, with one complaining of being blamed for issues beyond their control.
“Everyone expects products to be replaced under guarantee, even though the electricity is not our fault,” they said.
“There’s a lot of pressure on our after-sales department at the peak of the season, being inundated with service call requests... which is already overwhelming with the normal day-to-day workload, let alone with these extraordinary service calls requests.”
The retail sector also reported struggling to keep up with demand, with one business owner saying they were falling behind after receiving “many customer complaints”.
“July, August and September are our busiest months, and we are crippled by these incessant disruptions,” they said.
Impacts on personnel and reputation also featured prominently in the responses, with retail services reporting that the outages and high temperatures were taking a toll on their staff.
“Some of our employees have had three consecutive sleepless nights due to the heat and are coming to work very tired,” they said, adding the resulting staff shortages were compounding already challenging working conditions.
Meanwhile, those in the guesthouse sector said they had been hit by a slew of negative reviews from disgruntled holidaymakers.
“We are deeply concerned about the financial implications and the negative impact on our brand image,” said one respondent.
“Several guests took to various online platforms to express their dissatisfaction with the situation, leaving us with a substantial number of bad reviews and a tarnished online presence,” they said, adding they were receiving requests for compensation.
The chamber will be meeting with Enemalta this week to present its members’ claims and discuss compensation and a “realistic timeframe” for when the outages would be over, Mamo confirmed on Saturday.
Echoing the concerns of SMEs, the Malta Chamber of Commerce said it was worried that the number of businesses affected could “go into the hundreds”, warning that small businesses were most vulnerable to the impacts.
“These power cuts place an even bigger strain on smaller businesses such as offices, restaurants, small-scale retailers and department stores,” said a chamber spokesperson.
“Often, these operators do not have the luxury of investing in backup systems such as generators and energy storage systems connected to PV [solar-powered] systems.”
On Thursday, the chamber joined calls for compensation for those affected by the outages, saying that small businesses were bearing the brunt of an “extremely worrying” spate of blackouts.
Compensation for customers of the country’s sole energy provider should be discussed and agreed upon with all stakeholders, it said, echoing the appeals of the Nationalist Party and Valletta Cultural Agency chairman Jason Micallef.