Alternattiva Demokratika has slammed the Government’s “incompetence and carelessness” over the damaged turbine at the Delimara extension.

The damage and the fact that Enemalta “has to switch on Marsa’s polluting power station confirms yet again the incompetence, lack of planning and carelessness of this Government,” the Green party said.

Planning for a new power station was left to the very last minute and problems at the new facility meant the “highly polluting Marsa plant will have to be used for an additional six months, even though the 20,000 hours it was allowed to operate had been used up in 2011”.

With no other sources of energy in the pipeline, this was “symptomatic of an Administration that does not have a long-term vision in the energy sector”.

Minister after minister rubbished anyone who spoke about alternative sources of energy only to realise, too late, that something had to be done to wean the country off a total dependency on oil. This was “a long process that requires forward planning, something this Government is not capable of doing,” AD said.

Despite all the rhetoric, the Government was also very late in implementing the interconnector project.

AD’s spokesman on energy, Ralph Cassar, said the Government expected to rush through the commissioning of the extension without objections or problems.

The rush happened because it did not plan for the phasing out of the old power station at Marsa, even though it had promised it would be closed down first in 1995, on completion of the first Delimara power plant, then in 2004, on EU accession.