Finance Minister Edward Scicluna would not comment on whether businesses should be compensated for losses incurred as a result of the latest blackout.

Asked last week to quantify the cost of the widespread power outage on August 12 and whether he agreed with claims by the business community that it should also be compensated, a spokesman for the minister did not comment.

This contrasts with the stand Prof. Scicluna had taken in a similar incident in June 2009, when , at the time a Labour MEP, he had told Times of Malta the power failure had damaged the Maltese economy and estimated that the outage “could cost the country between €8 and €10 million”.

Prof. Scicluna had said the sum “amounts to half of the national daily-value added and did not include €2 to €3 million worth of losses caused by damages arising from loss of transactions and refrigerated goods that had gone bad”.

That power failure had been caused by one of the turbines at the Marsa power station tripping and in some areas lasted about 11 hours.

The latest blackout also developed in Marsa but through a faulty cable.

Some parts of the island were only reconnected to the electricity grid after 18 hours.

Calls by the business community, including the Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU and the Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry, for compensation over “millions in lost business” have been rejected by the government.

Instead, it opted to give a €25 token compensation to about 8,000 households that were left without power for more than 12 hours.