How Miriam Dalli blew the grid

Enemalta is the sole distributor of power.  It doesn’t generate electricity. All Enemalta is meant to do is get power to your home.  Enemalta can’t even do that.

Labour neglected the country’s distribution network so severely that the country faced massive power cuts last year.  The whole population was livid as elderly relatives died in the heat.  Energy Minister Miriam Dalli was responsible for those deaths.

She bragged in parliament that we won’t see the same power cuts this year.  Guess what?  We are.  The headlines announcing power cuts across the islands this month are all too familiar.

Last year, Dalli blamed the heat.  Now we know she was being disingenuous. The National Audit Office published a damning report exposing the chronic underinvestment in the power distribution network, Enemalta’s breaches of the law and its attempt to cover up its deficiencies and hide them from the NAO.

The NAO concluded that Labour’s shortcomings in planning and capital investment caused those power outages, and Minister Dalli was responsible for the abysmal lack of investment.

“Enemalta’s related expenditure was not well targeted, and/or not efficiently utilised and/or too low, particularly in view of the ever-increasing demands for electricity,” the NAO report concluded.

“Apart from the apparent inconvenience to consumers, the negative effect on value for money is also attested to by the payment of compensation to clients by the DSO (Enemalta) for prolonged outages or damages caused as well as by the economic impact emanating from risks associated with security of supply.”

Between 2014 and 2023, Labour’s ten years in power, Enemalta failed to spend €67 million allocated for the distribution network.  Those €67 million went elsewhere.  Where did they go?

When Miriam Dalli took over, things took a turn for the worse.  In the four years before her appointment Enemalta spent €63 million on the grid.  When she took over, she slashed spending on the grid and spent a miserly €25 million in her four years.

In her first year as minister, she spent just €4.78 million on the distribution network out of €10.9 million allocated,  in 2022 just 6.2 out of 11.1 million, and in 2023 only €5.7 million out of the allocated €11 million.

That’s just crazy.  The number of meters installed had risen dramatically. In 2014, there were just 291,426 electricity meters.  By 2023, there were 377.311.

The population had exploded.  Average temperatures and peak temperatures had also risen consistently during that time.  It doesn’t take a genius to realise that if the weather’s getting hotter, there are tens of thousands more people on the island and tens of thousands more electricity meters the demand will increase.

Is Miriam Dalli the only person on the planet who hasn’t heard of climate change?  Is she the only one who hasn’t noticed the country is packed?  Could she have missed the fact that Malta’s population rose by tens of thousands?

Despite the obviously predictable massive rise in energy demand,  Dalli oversaw the most radical spending cuts on the distribution system. While €14.5 million was spent upgrading the grid in 2014 under Konrad Mizzi,  Dalli spent just €4.78 million in 2021.

Enemalta planned for a 3% rise in demand per year.  In 2023 alone, the actual rise was 14%.  Enemalta’s planning was completely off the mark.

That’s not surprising. When the NAO tried to figure out how many customers were affected by the 2023 power cuts, Enemalta had no clue. They claimed, “The information is not recorded.”

Enemalta claims it doesn’t bother finding out how many of us were left without electricity. If that’s true, it’s no surprise that Enemalta is a disaster. If that’s a lie, Enemalta hid information from the NAO.

In July 2023 alone, there were 83 power cuts. Of course, people are going to die of heat stroke. Businesses lose money because they can’t transact and can’t run their business.  People can’t work because their internet is down. Restaurants and other catering establishments have to discard thousands of euro worth of food.  So do the rest of us.

Dalli’s Enemalta is a right mess.  The NAO found Enemalta broke the law several times: “Enemalta defaulted on its legal requirements”.  Enemalta was obliged to draw up and publish network development plans on its website and submit them to the regulator.  It didn’t.

When the NAO requested copies of those plans, Enemalta handed in two plans. One covered the period 2022 to 2027, and the other 2024 to 2031. While the latter was “quite extensive,” the other was just “an undated 4-page document.” The NAO was suspicious.

It asked the Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS) whether Enemalta had really submitted those plans.  REWS revealed that Enemalta had only submitted the 2024-2031 plan. And it was submitted late and didn’t include planned budgets.

It’s likely the other flimsy 2022-2027 report had been frantically drawn up solely to cover up Enemalta’s illegalities.

Enemalta was also legally obliged to draw up and update its network code every two years.  But the only code on Enemalta’s website is from 2013.

What’s even more shocking is that despite Enemalta’s repeated failure to meet legal obligations, the regulator didn’t bother to impose the penalties, running up to €100,000, stipulated in the law.

The regulator closed both eyes.  Its pathetic excuse was that “it rather prefers to attempt to convince the DSO (Enemalta) to abide by such regulations”.

We’re now facing the same power cuts as last year.  That’s no surprise.  Enemalta neglected the grid for years.  Miriam Dalli was too busy pushing Steve Ellul for MEP, which also failed, and pumping millions into the hyped-up Project Green. She didn’t even ensure Enemalta complied with the law.

Frail elderly people have died because of her incompetence and negligence.  That’s likely to happen again.  If that’s not a resignation issue, I don’t know what it is.