The Labour Party said today that yesterday's blackout reflected the government's lack of timely investment in power generation.

Party spokesman Marlene Pullicino said that the government's own experts had been warning for years that an emergency such as yesterday's could develop. The government itself had been saying, for 15 years, that it would close down Marsa power station.

But the government had shown itself to be lacking strategy.

The past two years had seen Eemalta's debts double to €470 million but no significant investment was made.

The solution that the government had proposed after years of indecision was to invest in an extension of Delimara power station using environmentally-harmful technology.

Situations such as that experienced yesterday put off investors, Ms Pullicino said.

She thanked Enemalta workers for seeking to restore the electricity supply as quickly as possible.

GOVERNMENT REACTION

The Finance Ministry in a reaction said the PL first attacked the government over its plans to extend Delimara power station and then tried to make political capital from yesterday’s power outage. It would appear that the Opposition wanted the country to continue to be lumped with the old Marsa power station.

The ministry said the government was investing heavily on power generation. It would spend €153 million on the interconnector to the power grid in Italy while also extending Delimara power station and closing down Marsa. It was also improving distribution through the laying of two 132kv cables from Delimara to Marsa distribution centre and building a new €20m distribution centre in Kappara which would be the local anchor of the interconnector and also supply power to the North East of Malta.

The ministry said the Opposition lacked serious policies and had not offered any solutions.