Maltese consumers were paying the highest electricity rates with the worst possible service, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said this afternoon.

In a news conference outside Castille, the Labour leader commented on Finance Minister Tonio Fenech’s letters to the Enemalta chairman and chief executive officer and said the government did not need yet another report but should look at the electricity generation report 2006-2015 which had envisaged what was happening today.

Mr Muscat described the forthcoming extension to the Delimara power station as the worst possible solution for the environment.

MEP Edward Scicluna said that in calculating the economic costs of an outage one had to realise that value added measured on the market was estimated at about €18 to €20 million euros daily.

This was not distributed evenly during a 24 hour day or a seven-day week.

Additionally there were forward linkages to other sectors which increased these effects accordingly.

The household sector was not measured but had a positive contribution which was also affected.

There were also the costs of irrecoverable spoilage of goods, cancelled events and similar matters. This suggested that no stone had to be left unturned to prevent such significant costs to the economy and the people's welfare.

See also:

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100403/local/minister-asks-enemalta-for-explanation