Miriam Dalli: PN’s ‘scaremongering campaign’ on power cuts must stop

The Nationalist Party’s “scaremongering campaign” on Sunday’s power cut must stop, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli told parliament.

“I appeal to the Opposition to stop these scaremongering campaigns and lack of truth, because if nothing was being done, people would have not had electricity back within an hour,” she said in parliament on Monday evening.

During her winding up speech on a parliamentary discussion on the income and expenditure of the Environment and Resources Authority (ERA), the energy minister briefly touched on Sunday’s power cut which affected a number of localities in the country.

Enemalta explained that a fault had developed while maintenance work was underway on the interconnector which supplies power from Sicily, tripping a power-generating turbine.  

The minister told the House the emergency power plant in Delimara was examined by ERA and is in line with IPCC directives.

Dalli went on to criticise the Opposition for claiming minimal effort was being carried out by government in improving the energy sector.

“It was indeed the Nationalist Party government that planned the interconnector. However, the work on it was done by the Labour government,” she said.

Earlier during the parliamentary session, Nationalist MP Darren Carabott stated the power outage was proof the country is “fully dependant” on the interconnector installed by a Nationalist administration.

“Where is the energy mix promised by the Labour party government? Does this mean that the country is dependent on an interconnector? And that, if it is switched off, we do not have the resources to run without it?" he asked. "Yesterday's was a clear example of how this government has failed our country when it comes to the provision of energy.”