Electricity returns to Swieqi council, police station

The Swieqi Civic Centre has been reconnected with electricity after having been cut off from it for a week due to a pending bill of over €20,000.

Swieqi deputy mayor Justin Fenech told MaltaToday that the centre, which houses the local council and the police station, is currently receiving electricity “directly from Enemalta” and that permanent electricity meters will be now be installed within the building.

The Times of Malta reported on Wednesday that the Swieqi civic centre had been running on a generator for a week after electricity was abruptly cut off from it.

Fenech explained that the hefty electricity bill had dated back to 2012 when the centre was still being built and that the local council had only leased the building from the government in 2014.

When contacted, Enemalta said that it is not authorised to issue details about services provided to specific customers, but that the company issues several payment reminders as well as a suspension notice at least a week before the electricity supply is disconnected. 

However, Fenech said that the council hadn’t received any such warnings and that electricity had abruptly been cut off from the centre.

He explained that, while the centre was being built, a temporary meter had been installed within it in the name of the Infrastructure Ministry, to whom electricity bills were sent. It remained installed there even after the government leased the building out to the local council. He added that all departments within the centre relied on the same temporary meter and that the ministry had ensured the council that they would sort out the meter problem.

When questioned by MaltaToday as to why the Ministry had left the bills unpaid and why it had failed to notify the local council, a spokesperson for the Ministry for Transport and Infrastructure simply said that the problem has been solved.