The Nationalist Party and Labour Party on Friday exchanged heated words on matters related to energy after it was reported that parts of Malta suffered power cuts, once again.
It is not acceptable for Maltese workers and businesses to suffer losses due to the government’s incompetence, the Nationalist Party said in its statement.
PN MPs Ryan Callus and Jerome Caruana Cillia said that the country is having a summer of continuous power cuts despite Prime Minister Robert Abela and Energy Minister Miriam Dalli saying that “this year the power will not be cut”, the PN MPs remarked.
“This incompetence is leading to a negative effect on the Maltese economy,” they added.
The MPs referred to a situation which took place yesterday in the Bulebel industrial area, “where several factories had to send people home due to Robert Abela and Miriam Dalli’s incompetence”. Callus and Caruana Cilia said that this instance was another “clear example of the negative effect that the continuous power cuts are having on the Maltese and Gozitan economy”.
Responding to PN’s statements, the Labour Party said that Opposition Leader Bernard Grech and his party keep “trying to be populist” in order to “score political points off the backs of Enemalta workers”.
Labour said that PN refrained from mentioning that Enemalta gave alternative supply sources to the factories while it carried out the necessary repairs. PL added that Enemalta maintained continuous contact with the factories.
“When the Nationalist Party talks about incompetence, it must remember the list of nine points that it presented for the energy sector which it now seems ashamed to mention,” PL remarked.
It continued that these nine points gave “three certain guarantees”, with those guarantees being a “guarantee of higher bills with the promise of liberalisation” a “blackout guarantee for 44 hours a year with the promise of 99.5% availability of electricity supply”, and that “no one gets compensation if they spend less than 12 hours straight without electricity”.
PL said that when PN was in government, it had left behind a “stagnant economy and zero investment in the energy sector”, which Labour said is a sector that one has to think about in the long term.
It continued that “on the contrary, the Labour Party in government has already invested a billion euros in the energy sector and will continue to invest”. It said that this investment has been made to strengthen the distribution system, diversify the generation sector, and see ambitious projects in the renewable energy sector for the long term.
Labour concluded by saying that the government will continue working to strengthen the country’s infrastructure for present and future generations, “just as it will continue working to ensure the competitiveness of companies”.