The revision of water and electricity bills should be preceded by a socio-economic impact assessment, Alternattiva Demokratika said.

Chairman Arnold Cassola said the energy increase exercise was totally botched and it would not dishonour the government to recognise its mistake and try to amend it.

"The government should get around the negotiating table with all social partners, commission a socio-economic impact assessment and then, on the basis of this and always with the social partners, hammer out a precise road map on the phasing out of capping for industry and on a gradual increase in fossil fuel tariffs.”

Ralph Cassar, AD’s spokesman for energy, industry and transport said that the lack of investment and planning in the past 20 years was shameful.

“Efforts to collect rainwater, thereby reducing the illegal extraction of ground water and the dependence on expensive and energy intensive reverse osmosis systems, have been next to nil,” he pointed out.

AD, Mr Cassar said, called for a system of tariffs which favoured low energy users who should carry, proportionately, less of a burden than those who opted to live a wasteful lifestyle.

Carmel Cacopardo, AD’s spokesman on sustainable development and local government said the sustainability of the electricity generation and potable water production had been an issue for the past decades but e government chose to keep it on the backburner.

“The government through Austin Gatt and Tonio Fenech just tackled the problem in a mechanical way: a calculator exercise – no different from what Alfred Sant’s government did in 1997,” he said.