The infrastructure of our country is vital for its proper functioning. If the infrastructure fails, then the whole economy crumbles and experiences shut down.

The justified anger among the Maltese population has reached unprecedented levels in the face of the recent power outages and the resulting damages.

Our infrastructure is showing serious signs of weakness and inadequacy, unable to cope with the demand brought to bear by the ever-increasing overpopulation on this 17-mile stretch of land.

Our two political parties have not dealt and are not dealing with this situation head-on by using the proverbial, “taking the bull by the horns”. To the contrary, they have allowed developers and contractors to convert Malta into a permanent construction site; to build uncontrollably creating an ugly “tower-crane” island.

Moreover, property owners and speculators are renting out apartments to foreign “slave” workers where you have situations of 20, 30 or more persons living in an apartment meant for three occupants.

The demand for electricity

The results of this increase in the uncontrolled building craze and overpopulation are obvious; the demand for electricity power skyrockets to the extent that it cannot provide power to even switch on an LED light!

This overloaded infrastructure is leading to the obvious consequences where the underground cables passing under our streets, supplying current to residences and other buildings in every town, village and hamlet, cannot cope. The overload causes overheating and overpowering of cables that melt of their insulation.

This eventually leads to the copper rods touching each other and short circuiting and finally the cable exploding.

It is far from being stated that no work has been done to improve matters, but the fact remains that there is not enough energy distribution in our electricity grid to serve and sustain Malta’s overpopulation. The electricity grid with its sub-stations is becoming outdated. It is no secret that most of the underground cables are from the times of the British services and the Mintoff administration of the 1960s and 1970s.

Compensation?

How can a restaurant owner survive financially if his/her restaurant has to remain two days without electricity and having to throw away meat, fish and other foodstuffs, once the ice in the freezers melts? There were reported cases where the meters of a whole block of apartments blew up and burnt.

Minister Miriam Dalli has just announced that a compensation is going to be given for this inconvenience. This begs the question: What kind of compensation and for what? Also, from where is this compensation being sourced and what kind of compensation? Is it coming from our own taxes or from the Chinese investors who own 30% of Enemalta?

A time to wake up

What is most important here is for our authorities to admit that our infrastructure was not designed to accommodate the present overpopulation where some of our towns have been transformed into literal little “Bronx” and “Ghettos”, with people living in crowded conditions. These are unhygienic and unsanitary conditions where humans live in “chicken pen” style of apartments.

The drainage system

Our authorities should, for once, stop fooling us citizens into believing that compensation will solve our problems. The situation is clearer than crystal also with regard to the drainage system where we have a similar situation as in electricity. Drainage pipes are bursting, leaking and breaking and where this is not visible to the naked eye at street level, the drainage is filtering down into the rock formation or else escaping into valleys or the sea.

Reverse Osmosis Plants (RO’s)

Imagine if the RO’s shut down due to overload in electricity. This will have a dramatic effect on our water supply. Do we know how long the water supply will serve if this happens, if the generators do not step in? What is our water supply reserve? Will it last for more than half a day? The people need to be made aware and have a clear answer to these questions.

Re-building the national electrical grid through tunnelling

It does not require the mind of a rocket scientist or engineer to realise that the only viable and feasible solution to this precarious situation is to re-build our system through tunnelling using the Valletta model.

In Valletta, two tunnels were dug underground: one for water, electricity and internet and another (at a level lower) for the drainage system. If this project is embarked upon a national scale, it will have to be done for every street, where each house is connected to this system.

These tunnels would allow technical persons to enter easily to inspect repair and replace cables when and if necessary. This system would also replace our present antiquated system where a road must be dug up for repairs to take place. Another advantage of this system is the unnecessary expenses to dig up streets and the added inconvenience would be avoided.

How many times were roads asphalted only to be dug up a month later and dug up again for the umpteenth time? Without the tunnelling system (as the work presently stands), the system is only guaranteed to serve for 50 years while a tunnelling system has a life span of at least 200 years.

Introducing a tunnelling system also means that the country would get rid of the unsightly mess of cables hanging on the facades of buildings (Go, Melita and other providers adding to the number of cables).

Valletta is the only exception where cables are not hanging on facades. The Valletta tunnels had been purposely dug below the middle part of the streets and holes drilled in front of each building. Through these holes, electricity cables are taken up (together with the internet and water services) for connection to each building. The holes are then sealed off to prevent rodents and insects from entering.

Our forefathers were wise in planning the tunnelling system in Valletta and we need to take this idea on board to re-design our utility provision on a national scale. This would prevent the undesirable situations as in St Paul’s Bay, to cite just one example, where roads were dug up more than four times. Despite this work, drainage still flows to the sea. Where are our experts?

Economy of the few

Given the above context, our economic model begs for urgent and immediate review. Firstly, Malta needs to put a cap on population growth unless the economy wants to suffer more upheavals leading to burn-outs. The size of our country does not permit a population of more than 500,000.

From a political point of view, our economy is also not sustainable if one considers the strong business lobby that sponsors financially the two main political parties. The parties have allowed those who sponsor them to ride roughshod on them. A situation has been created where either the party in government does what their sponsor/s say or else everything crumbles.

Electric cars

The incentives and drive to introduce electric vehicles on the market needs careful consideration. If one were to view videos on YouTube channels of the number of scooters, motorcycles, buses and other vehicles having their battery exploding, then one would re-think the idea of buying an electric vehicle.

Moreover, if our electricity grid cannot cope with the present demand, how will it cope with the demand to charge all the electric vehicles in the future?

Long-term planning

Our country is overloaded in all facets and is facing an embarrassing and potentially disastrous situation if the government does not step in and take remedial action before it is too late.

One may venture to say that it is doubtful whether the government has an efficient and effective long-term national strategy to solve the country’s social and economic challenges. One cannot afford to be short-sighted in these difficult circumstances.