The Nationalist Party will be filing a request for Parliament's Public Accounts Committee to discuss the National Audit Office's report into the spate of power cuts which enveloped Malta in 2023, days after Malta emerges from another similar spate of power cuts.

The PN said in a statement that it is continuing to work to place the electricity crisis at the very top of the country's agenda.

In light of the power cuts crisis, the PN said that it will request that the Public Accounts Committee, which is due to meet on Wednesday, begin discussing the Auditor General's report on the 2023 energy crisis, entitled High-Level Review: Enemalta's Planning and Investment in the Local Electricity Distribution Network.

The PN said that this report by the National Audit Office (NAO), published in July 2024, found that the extensive power cuts during the previous summer were caused by widespread faults across the electricity network, particularly in high-voltage cable joints, at a time of high temperatures and demand.

The report concluded that there were serious shortcomings in Enemalta's planning and investment and found that the lack of investment in the distribution network was the main cause of the crisis. Actual expenditure on the network was significantly lower than the allocated budgets and declined despite rising demand. In fact, between 2014 and 2023, investment expenditure on the electricity distribution network was cut to one-third of the level recorded before 2014.

"It appears that, despite this report and despite Miriam Dalli telling us that €140 million was spent over the past three years to strengthen the distribution network, the problem has not been resolved but has instead become worse," the PN said.

The PN said that it is demanding a clear explanation and a detailed account of how and where this €140 million was spent, a breakdown which Minister Dalli thus far is refusing to provide in Parliament.

The party said that it is also demanding an explanation as to why the Government left this report on the shelf for three whole years, as it has done with many other reports, and failed to implement the recommendations it received.

The party noted that this particular report has never even been discussed at parliamentary level. In addition, the report found that Enemalta repeatedly failed to publish and submit its Network Development Plans to the regulator, as it is required to do under European directives.

"In light of these circumstances, and with our country once again finding itself in an energy crisis, the PN had no alternative but to request that this report be discussed by this parliamentary committee," the party said.

The Nationalist Opposition said that it is demanding accountability from the Government over the basic service of electricity supply. "At this stage, it appears that the Opposition is the only one concerned about the energy crisis we are facing, while the Government is saying very little about what is happening," the party said.

In addition to the request for the PAC to discuss this crisis, Leader of the Opposition and of the PN Alex Borg has already requested the urgent convening of the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD), so that the situation may be discussed at national level with all social partners, its consequences for families, workers and businesses may be assessed, and concrete and immediate solutions may be demanded from the Government.

"The Government is also running away from a parliamentary debate on this crisis and is refusing to discuss this national emergency in the House of Representatives. It even ignored the request for the Opposition's motion of no confidence in Minister Miriam Dalli to be debated, as Parliament adjourned for the summer on Monday," the PN said.

"This means that the Government has placed the power cuts crisis on the shelf until the first week of October, while families and businesses remain without electricity and have been left to fend for themselves throughout the summer. The Government also ignored the Opposition's request for automatic compensation to be provided whenever the electricity supply is interrupted,"the party concluded.

The statement was by PN MP and PAC Chairperson Darren Carabott together with fellow PN MPs Graham Bencini and Eve Borg Bonello, who are the Opposition members on the PAC.