“I worry every time there’s a power cut,” Miriam Dalli commented.  She must be driven mad with worry by now if that’s the case.  Dalli is right to worry - about her own position for a start.  She knows she shouldn’t be minister. Any decent leader would have sacked her instantly.

Instead Robert Abela, her boss, is commending her for drawing up a plan - now, four years after she became Minister. Abela had words of praise for Dalli and Enemalta Chairman Ryan Fava for that plan.  Enemalta has a legal obligation to draw up plans, publish them on their website and submit them to the Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS). But the last time Enemalta drew up their network code was in 2013.

Enemalta is legally obliged to submit that code every two years.  The Regulator is meant to impose penalties of up to 100,000 euro on Enemalta for failing to do so.  But Enemalta never updated that code since 2013 - that’s a whole decade.

Miriam Dalli is the minister responsible.  For four long years she failed to ensure Enemalta fulfilled its legal obligations.  The various Chairmen, CEOs, and Board of Directors did nothing except pick up their hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money in remuneration.  Is it possible that nobody amongst Labour’s appointees at Enemalta noticed that they’d never submitted a network code in ten years? Did the Minister even know that Enemalta was legally obliged to do so? 

That alone exposes Miriam Dalli for the totally useless poser she is.

It gives you some sense of the utter incompetence of those board directors, CEOs and chairmen. That’s what happens when you appoint cronies like former Labour Deputy Leader Charles Mangion  and  Jonathan Cardona to head Enemalta.

But Enemalta got away with it.  Those Board directors got away with it.  The CEO and Chairmen got away with it. And so did the Minister.  Because instead of fining Enemalta, the Regulator for energy and water services chose to close both eyes.  It told the National Audit Office that it had taken no action on Enemalta despite its failure because “it rather prefers to attempt to convince the DSO (Enemalta) to abide to such regulations”.  The regulator had 10 years to convince Enemalta to do its duty and still Enemalta didn’t.

The minister not only got away with her sheer sloppiness but was praised by her boss. Have you ever heard of something so absurd?  Dalli’s boss, Robert Abela, praised her for doing what she was meant to do four years ago. Meanwhile the country suffered widespread power outages for the second year running.

Labour thrives in mediocrity.  Instead of getting kicked out instantly the Minister gets praised for badly failing her duty.

Robert Abela is trying to fool the nation from his luxury resort in Marina di Ragusa while people struggle to breathe in the heat as they empty the spoilt contents of their freezers into the organic waste bag.  And they have to suffer the stench of that spoilt food because their freezer needs electricity to work.

Abela is bragging that Enemalta will commit “the biggest ever investment in the distribution network”.  He boasted of a 55 million euro plan.  That’s less than the 67.1million euro that was meant to be spent on that distribution network in the last decade and wasn’t.  In 2021 Miriam Dalli spent just 25% of what Konrad Mizzi spent in 2014 on the distribution network.  The population had exploded, the number of meters had rocketed, demand was sky high but Miriam Dalli failed to spend the allocated money for the grid every single year since she became minister.  In three out of those four years she didn’t even manage to spend half of the money allocated to the grid.

Is it any surprise that so many of us now are left fuming without power for hours on end?

To add insult to injury Dalli is now paying 10,000 euro per hour per generator to try appease furious citizens.  Those huge generators are parked in our streets.  They’re noisy and dirty.  They’re diesel operated, producing toxic exhaust fumes.  Wasn’t Labour meant to close down the cancer factory of heavy fuel oil?  Instead it’s brought the cancer factories right under our windows with added noise pollution to bear. She’s also promising to pay us compensation out of our own money.  We pay more and more for her negligence every year.

Dalli bragged that the ongoing investment is unprecedented.  Of course it is.  She spent just 4.78 million on that grid in 2021.  That’s a pittance.  Konrad Mizzi spent 14.5 million in 2014 when there was far less demand.  Any investment is unprecedented compared to 4.78 million.

“I wish we could dig up the entire country and do all the work that needs to be done in one go,” she commented.  She’s out of her mind.  The traffic situation is desperate enough as it is. The last thing we need is more trenches and road closures. 

Miriam Dalli is in a panic. She wants to dig up the whole country now after having slept for four years.  She wouldn’t need to dig up the country if she’d done her duty and spent those 67.1 million when she should, slowly and responsibly, over four long years.  Those high voltage cables should have been replaced when roads were being built.  Not after they’d been completed.

“I and Enemalta management want to leave a stronger distribution network,” Dalli told Andrew Azzopardi.  Since when? If she wanted a stronger distribution network she would have been working hard for the last four years. She should have ensured Ryan Fava and his board of directors fulfilled their legal obligations.  She would have insisted that those 67.1 million were spent where they were intended - on the distribution network.

“Enemalta has not yet had enough time to entirely solve the distribution problem,” Robert Abela informed us.  Of course they have. They’ve had 10 years and didn’t even bother draw up any plans. They told the NAO they don’t even know how many customers were affected by power cuts.

Half Malta and Gozo doesn’t know when their power will go out.  The other half doesn’t know when it will come back.  Meanwhile Robert Abela parties at Marina di Ragusa safe in the knowledge that his power supply is safe there.  And Enemalta unashamedly condemns “the propaganda spread by certain individuals”.  Even the best Labour propaganda won’t convince anyone their fridge is working when there’s no power.