A total value added loss of €200 million has been calculated on the economy as a result of power blackouts, the Nationalist Party’s finance spokesperson Jerome Caruana Cilia said Thursday.
Using the same calculation made by former finance minister Edward Scicluna in 2009, when he had said that €10 million had been lost in a six-hour blackout, Caruana Cilia said that the power cuts of the last days have amounted to €200 million in losses.
He said that this figure was estimated on feedback from businesses and the people in general, many of which have been suffering from far more than 6 hours of total blackout.
From people leaving their homes to sleep elsewhere, to many having to throw away hundreds of euros worth of frozen food, the PN is also urging to government to give the right compensation for the losses incurred.
PN spokesperson for Energy Mark Anthony Sammut said that these blackouts could have been prevented.
He added that this is not the hottest that Malta has ever been as the highest recorded temperature is 44 degrees and dates back to the 1990, adding that back then there were no recorded power cuts.
Moreover he said that the “10 days of blackout is only the Prime Minister’s (Robert Abela) and Miriam Dalli’s (Energy minister) own record”, adding that other countries have also registered high temperatures but have not experienced the widespread cuts that Malta has gone through.
A direct contributor to these power cuts is the increase in population, Sammut said, adding that the price for such faults in the energy distribution system is being paid by “Enemalta workers and people having to throw away their food”.
PN spokesperson for tourism Mario de Marco also reported that these power cuts are also affecting the tourism sector negatively.
“Hotels are experiencing walkouts and cancellations,” de Marco said.
He said that the success of the tourism sector for the Islands is based on accessibility, the Maltese product and publicity. De Marco said that when tourists have a bad experience they go on to write bad reviews which in turn, on average affects another possible future 12 customers.
He also questioned what kind of compensation the government is going to give to suffering businesses.