Energy minister shuns Opposition’s call for a state of emergency to be declared

Miriam Dalli has shunned calls to declare the current electricity crisis a national emergency, insisting the immediate priority is to restore power as quickly as possible.

“What difference will it make to what we are doing now? Now is not the time for political theatrics,” the Energy Minister said in reaction to Opposition leader Bernard Grech’s call for a national emergency to be declared.

She insisted the ministry’s main focus was to resolve the situation without delay and to mitigate disruptions caused by the ongoing power cuts.

Dalli said other ministries were actively offering their support and assistance in handling the crisis.

Malta has been blighted by widespread power outages as a result of the persistent heatwave. The situation even led to areas ending up without water in their taps for several hours on Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, Grech called on the Prime Minister to declare a national emergency and make all public resources, including the police and the army, available to alleviate the hardship on consumers hard-hit by the power outages.

Dalli was speaking at a technical briefing with Enemalta engineers held on Tuesday afternoon.

Once again she said compensation will be given but provided no details, insisting these will be given in the “coming days”.

Company officials said the expected cooling of air temperatures from Wednesday did not necessarily mean power outages will stop.

The power grid still needed to be stabilised until the remaining faults were repaired, Enemalta CEO Jonathan Cardona said.

The temperature is expected to drop to around 34°C on Wednesday after surpassing 40°C for the past week and a record-equalling 42.7°C on Monday.

Since 17 July, Enemalta saw 81 high-voltage cable faults, of which 53 have been repaired, Cardona said.

“While the temperature will drop, there is no guarantee we won’t see more faults. Of course, we hope there will be less stress on the cables, and that we can repair all the faults,” Cardona said, adding that he was hopeful the situation would be resolved by the weekend.

He said demand for electricity on Tuesday hit another record of 663MW, a day after the previous record of 649MW was set.

Cardona denied claims Enemalta had a shortage of high-voltage cables.