Last Tuesday’s nationwide blackout has once again highlighted the vulnerability of our energy sector and the failure of successive governments to tackle this problem over the years.

Malta has suffered power cuts on a too regular basis for the past decades and we have almost become complacent about this ridiculous situation. But a nationwide power cut in the middle of August, when temperatures soar and in the midst of the busiest tourism month, when several businesses peak, could not be more ill-timed.

Of further concern is the fact that the power cut led to a two-hour closure of Malta International Airport’s runway, causing four flights to be diverted to Sicily as well as a number of flight delays. Besides showing how susceptible the country’s main economic pillar – tourism – is to these electricity cuts, the claim by airport sources that MIA’s generators experienced technical difficulties is particularly worrying.

Not surprisingly, people are demanding answers and asking what Enemalta Corporation was planning to rectify this completely unacceptable state of affairs.

Enemalta CEO Frederick Azzopardi said this particular outage was caused by a problem in the power distribution and not in the production, as we have often seen in the past.

What was worrying was his statement that such nationwide power cuts could still take place when the new gas-fired power station is up and running.

Mr Azzopardi said an explosion at an electrical distribution centre in Marsa, which caused the Delimara power plant to shut down, was caused by a faulty subterranean cable. He said this could happen again as the state of the many stretches of underground wiring was unknown.

Mr Azzopardi’s explanation is hardly reassuring and shows just how neglectful various governments have been over the years in coming to terms with this distribution problem.

When one considers the amount of taxpayers’ money spent over the years in the energy sector, including on building new power stations, it seems incomprehensible that no proper investment was made in the country’s electricity distribution system.

An internal Enemalta inquiry is now underway to determine the exact details surrounding Tuesday’s blackout, and hopefully the corporation will soon be in a position to tell the public exactly what happened.

However, stating the exact cause of the power cut is not enough; what Enemalta needs to do is present a long-term plan identifying exactly why blackouts have taken place over the years (they do not only occur due to distribution problems) and what it intends to do to prevent any more from occurring.

Building a new gas-powered power station and reducing utility bills by 25 per cent is not enough and will not eliminate the problem of power cuts.

It would have been preferable had the Energy Minister addressed the press conference the day after Malta was plunged into darkness; this would have signalled that the government was taking this matter seriously. Power cuts are not just a temporary inconvenience  they are causing disruptions to the economy and give Malta a bad name in the eyes of foreign investors.

Moreover, last week’s outage, if prolonged further, could have caused water shortages and sewage overflows.

Most of Malta’s water comes from reverse osmosis plants powered by electricity, while sewage is pumped through galleries by pumping stations, which also run on electricity. It is not difficult to envisage the scenario in the event of a long-lasting blackout.

What we need to do is avoid the partisan finger-pointing which has overshadowed one of the most important sectors of the economy for way too long.