Editorial

When lights go down, everybody is inconvenienced and many even panic. Judging by statements made, or, rather, hints that were pushed through the grapevine, that includes the top brass at Enemalta and their political masters, perhaps the second being more obvious than the first.

The point at issue is, of course, the widespread power outage that occurred in early morning on November 18. At about 6.15 a.m., the switchgear at the Marsa power station tripped, prompting an automatic emergency system that cut off the power across the islands. A fire ensued and this was extinguished through another automated safety response system. Luckily, no one was injured. An hour or so after the incident, electricity began being restored and all power was returned by 11.30 a.m. But the controversy remained.

Consumers rightly demanded an explanation. Alas, the best the powers-that-be could do immediately was to hint that it could have been a case of sabotage. First, government officials contacted sections of the media peddling the idea of possible foul play, saying this happened whenever Enemalta was somehow being debated on a national level. The night before, Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter had been interviewed on state television and the corporation's estimates were also being debated in Parliament.

Mr Tranter was more careful on how he put it: "I understand that press reports have observed that this is not the first time we had a power cut because of a fault at the Marsa power station while Enemalta was being discussed on television or in Parliament." No mention of the term sabotage but the message is there.

What they seemed to be saying was that what happened was beyond their control. Of course, given what consumers are now paying for electricity consumption, Enemalta or, indeed, the government had to ensure that the outage would not be seen as being the result of some inefficiency on their side. The details of the very handsome remuneration packages some senior people at Enemalta are receiving, as it emerged on the TV programme, Dissett, Mr Tranter had appeared on just hours before the blackout, could only have rubbed salt into the wounds.

Ruling out nothing before at least preliminary investigations start yielding some results is one thing but pushing the idea of sabotage and failing to mention, say, pure accident, an overload, malfunction or whatever else could have contributed is another. Not only did this not happen but, when he addressed journalists not long after the incident, Mr Tranter thought it fit to refer to the press reports mentioned above and then noting that once a magisterial inquiry and a police investigation were under way nothing could yet be "revealed". Which means the press could not ask questions!

Being an engineer by profession and evidently well aware of how the power station runs and what sort of safety measures are in place, Mr Tranter should have known better. Indeed, engineers who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity attributed the outage to a "fault" and saw nothing sinister in it. "It was possible" for switchgear technology to fail, they said.

Which, of course, does not rule out sabotage either. But one cannot and should not mention one possibility and omit all the others, as the official side did last week.

Consumers now expect answers. More than a week has passed since the blackout, yet, no preliminary findings have been published. But perhaps they never will. People must get used to remain in the dark!