Measures in progress to ensure no repetition of blackouts in Male’

State Electric Company Limited (STELCO)’s Managing Director Hussain Fahmy states the company is presently taking measures to ensure there is no repetition of power outages following two total blackouts in Male’ and Hulhumale’ over the past two months.

The most recent power outage in the capital occurred on August 9, leaving residents of Malé and Hulhumalé without electricity for almost three hours—just two months after a previous total blackout on June 1, which lasted nearly six hours.

On that day, Fahmy said the company had identified the cause of the outage, and was working on “sorting it out.” However, he declined to say anything beyond confirming it was a “technical issue.” Fahmy added that STELCO continuously strives to ensure there is no recurrence of such incidents.

When questioned by Sun on Thursday, Fahmy, who did not specify the exact cause behind the power outages, said the problem does not involve damage to any of its equipment. He also assured that the company has the capability to resolve the issue at hand.

Fahmy, citing the issue that caused the total blackout on August 9th, has been resolved, said measures were still being implemented to ensure there is no repetition of such incident.

“[Although the issue which caused the total blackout has been resolved] we are also undertaking additional efforts, even this weekend, to ensure there is no repetition of such incidents,” he said.

The previous blackout on June 1 prompted President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu to order a police investigation.

Fahmy states STELCO has not yet received the results of the investigation.

The Police provided an update on their investigation on August 9th. In this regard, the authority confirmed it had gathered all preliminary information necessary for the probe and that further investigative work is ongoing based on those initial findings. The Police added that the final report will be shared once the investigation is complete.

While majority of the Maldivian population resides in capital Male’ City, there have been concerns over damage to electrical appliances due to frequent power outages.