The GSD has responded to the Government’s introduction of The Electricity Infrastructure (Damage) Act 2025.

A statemeny from the GSD follows below:

The GSD has expressed guarded support for the Government’s introduction of  emergency legislation, The Electricity Infrastructure (Damage) Act 2025, while  criticising the Government’s repeated failure to prevent avoidable power outages. Craig Sacarello stated that the Bill “feels rather like shutting the stable door after the  horse has already bolted,” pointing to the Government’s pattern of reacting to crises  rather than addressing root causes. 

“On 16 September 2025, Gibraltar suffered a total blackout lasting seven hours. Just  weeks later, on 25 October, another large-scale outage affected the North District; both  incidents caused by contractors cutting through power cables. When will the  Government open its eyes and accept that the definition of madness is doing the same  thing repeatedly and expecting a different result?” 

The GSD believes that the solution lies in ensuring a Gibraltar Electricity Authority  (GEA) official is present, paid for by the contractor, whenever grid-critical works are  carried out. Without this oversight, fines alone will not prevent the next blackout. While acknowledging that the proposed £100,000 strict liability fine is intended to  deter negligence, the GSD raised concerns about smaller contractors’ ability to pay and  questioned whether the legislation obliges them to carry adequate insurance. 

Craig Sacarello’s statement in Parliament also drew attention to the OFT’s licensing role,  reminding the Government that SDA Ltd, the contractor responsible for the September  blackout, did not hold an up-to-date licence at the time. In the absence of any real time  GEA supervision, he argued that it was essential that the role of the OFT in issuing of the  licence for such excavation works carried with it a responsibility to ensure competency  in this field on the part of the contractor being licenced. 

“Reliability will not come from punishment after the fact,” Craig Sacarello concluded,  “but from proper contractor-funded GEA supervision, competent licensing, proactive  oversight and a sustainable robust infrastructure.”