Of melting tar

Tonio Fenech has a knack of putting his foot in it. The Finance Minister has tried to explain the recent power cuts with excuses as ridiculous as those explaining the deficit, National debt and recession.

In a statement made in the last few days, Tonio Fenech said that one of the main causes for power cuts was the excessive heat that caused melting of tar which in turn caused splitting of electricity cables and wires. Either Minister Fenech does not know what he is saying or he thinks that the Maltese people are gullible.

Tonio Fenech should know that electricity cables are, by law, buried in trenches between 1 and 2 meters deep, covered in sand and on top of which stone with a thickness of at least 7 cm is laid over. Rubble is laid over this process and tar is only applied at that stage. If and only if, Tonio Fenech were correct we would have had a situation of cart ruts or something similar to molten lava on our roads.

This same minister is the same person who said that he did not appoint a ‘cuc Malti’ for a top post in Malta. He must judge Maltese workers by his own yardstick. With these remarks, Gonzi’s statement to U.S. officials that he did not have enough competent persons to run the country, starts carrying more weight. It is now even more probable than possible, that Dr. Gonzi had Tonio Fenech in mind when making that statement.

In Malta and Gozo, we have had warmer summers over the years. The real problem is overloading and our inefficient distribution system. This is due to a lack of serious planning on the part of GonziPN. Ministers should not insult the people’s intelligence to cover up their inefficiency.

A dossier prepared by Enemalta in 2008 shows that one of the biggest challenges facing Malta was the lack of enough electrciity generation and distribution facilities due to lack of planning over the years by successive PN governments since 1987. That is the serious problem we are still facing, not melting tar.