In a letter to the Chairman of the Malta Transport Authority, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Communications, Austin Gatt, said that an independent report carried out by Price Waterhouse Cooper, regarding the temporary admission of foreign registered vehicles, confirms his concerns about the unsatisfactory quality of procedures in the administration of vehicle licensing and registration and the need to implement radical reforms in this area.

As far as the narrow area covered by this report is concerned, the Minister said he looks forward to the Board's comments and plans for the implementation of the recommendations and to now move forward both on the legislative as well as the administrative front to implement a reform that delivers a procedure that is transparent, easy and efficient to administer, balances responsibilities so as not to concentrate decision making and reduces discretion to a minimum.

In this regard the letter directed the Authority to implement the following policies:

1. The Legal Notice regulating this area should be amended immediately in order to provide for the following:

a. a resident in Malta is not to be given a temporary permit to import a foreign registered vehicle. Instead any resident should be obliged to register the vehicle (and pay the relative registration tax) within seven days of importation - I can see no reason for the provision of any exceptions to this rule (including second hand car importers);

b. a person shall be considered a resident if he is in possession of an identity card issued in Malta or should, according to law, have applied for such card;

c. a person considered as a non-resident will have the right to import a foreign registered vehicle and keep the same for a period of six months, after which he or she shall be obliged to register the vehicle (and pay the relative registration tax) provided that if such person produces a contract of employment showing that that person will be employed in Malta for a further period of six months at most, the Authority shall extend the period within which such person has the right not to register such vehicle for a further one time period of six months after which period such person shall be obliged to register such vehicle (and pay the relative registration tax);

d. vehicles exempted (for first six months) or authorised (for subsequent year) under (c) above will be issued with plates bearing distinctive letters or, if this is not deemed feasible, security windscreen stickers clearly showing that the car has been exempted and the month of expiry of that permission;

e. The vehicle has a current paid-up road licence and relative insurance, failing which, the vehicle should not be allowed on the road and should be forced to register in Malta;

f. establish fees to regulate applications for issue of TF plates/stickers, processing and authorisations;

g. establish fines for the non-observance of regulations, including the right to tow away vehicles found to be in breach of these regulations, and grant enforcement powers to the ADT's enforcement officers as well as other enforcement forces.

2. As part of a broad review for all the licencing and registration procedures, the Authority should draw up and issue detailed work-flows to clearly explain how applications should be treated internally within the Authority and such procedures should ensure that:

a. The filing, processing (including valuation), authorisation and payment of the application should be segregated and assigned to different sections within the authority;

b. The applicant should be given a publication explaining the procedure to be applied by the Authority and his or her rights at law;

c. The application, authorisation and payment process should be integrated within mainstream IT systems (such as eVera and eReg) which will have the necessary reporting functions and as a consequence all manual processes eliminated as much as possible;

d. Internal Audit should plan system audits at irregular intervals to ensure process integrity.

3. Following the Ministry's approval of the Authority's plan to implement the new Legal Notice and internal procedures, the Authority should advise effected persons and assist them to corne in line with the new laws and regulations.

4. The Authority should consolidate its Enforcement Unit into one, coherent section that operates independently of (but in liaison with) different Units of the Authority, has responsibility for all enforcement officers and assigns officers to tasks as and when required. This will change the present system where units have a determinate number of officers who operate under direction of the Unit itself. Enforcement procedures in this area should be standardised and documented and personnel should be properly trained and equipped to ensure a transparent and courteous but firm and consistent enforcement programme. The Authority is obviously expected to examine positively the various recommendations being made in this regard in the PWC report.

5. The Authority is directed to immediately refund all deposits that have been made by clients and accepted by the Authority without having any basis at law.

6. The Authority is also directed to immediately stop the illegal practice of allowing dealers to hold foreign-plated vehicles and to ensure that they are either registered immediately or else towed away.

In his letter, the Minister also took the opportunity to draw the Authoritys attention to the part of the report dealing with vehicles on which registration tax has been calculated but not yet paid. The report shows that these amount to 790 vehicles, an increase of over 300 vehicles in less than 18 months. The situation is furthermore aggravated by a further 331 vehicles on which valuations have not yet been made - a total of 1,121 vehicles waiting to pay registration tax, some of which have been waiting for over 3 years.

The Minister concluded by saying that this is an unacceptable situation and that he expects the ADT to draw up immediate plans to regularise the present situation and ensure that, once regularised, it is not repeated. Adding that he expects the ADT to submit its plan of operation by the end of July.