About 300 Valletta residents who were billed by CVA Technology Company Limited, have now received a letter in which they are being told to ignore bills they received mistakenly, even if not all those registered as Valletta residents necessarily live there.
A specific resident who called this newspaper said she was dumbstruck when she received a bill for Lm11.90 (EUR 27.72), considering that her car was parked in Valletta every night during the month of May (the Controlled Vehicular Access system began operating on 1 May).
After the first month of operation, CVA Technology Co. Ltd issued 2,244 bills of over Lm5, while another 33,925 motorists are expected to receive their bills at the end of July or the beginning of August.
Among those who received bills were a number of people registered as Valletta residents, who have now received a letter saying they should ignore the bills until some verifications are made.
Contacted for comment yesterday, Konrad Pulè, a spokesman for the Malta Transport Authority (ADT), said that no bills have been cancelled – they were merely suspended pending review, which is essentially the continuation of the monitoring of the cars under review, to see if they do actually belong to residents who live in Valletta.
According to criteria established by CVA Technology Co. Ltd, vehicles parked in the CVA zone for at least 15 nights per month for at least two consecutive hours between 1am and 5am, would automatically be considered as Valletta residents.
If a resident satisfies these criteria between October and May, s/he will be automatically considered a resident for the next four months (June to October). This is to cater for those Valletta residents who reside elsewhere during the summer months.
Residents sleeping outside the charging zone between 1am and 5am for work-related reasons can submit a written request to the Valletta local council for consideration.
Considering abuse among those who are registered as Valletta residents, but who do not actually live there, the company operating the CVA system will find it difficult to make the necessary verifications to decide who should pay the bills that were sent “mistakenly” and who should not.
Mr Pulè said: “The method of working out overnight stays of cars belonging to residents improves with time. The longer the CVA works, the more accurate the information it collects becomes. We are aware that some perfectly eligible residents may have received bills.
“We are also aware that there may be several causes for this, including the fact that on a few occasions, vandalism on the cameras meant that information about car movements was not collected until the source of the (intentional) damage was found and addressed.”
Last week, this newspaper quoted an ADT spokesperson as saying that the Malta Transport Authority (ADT) was pleased with the way the system has been operating since it was introduced, even if it is “possibly not yet 100 per cent accurate”.
The spokesman said that since the system is still in its infancy, people are encouraged to provide feedback to the company operating the CVA system. If need be, contestations could also be made.
“Possibly not 100 per cent accurate” is somewhat of an understatement, considering that about 300 Valletta residents could have been billed mistakenly and other motorists could have been billed incorrectly.
Moreover, it must be noted that according to www.cva.
gov.mt: “Controlled Vehicular Access is a tried-and-tested system that is in operation in a number of major cities across Europe as well as in other parts of the world.”
It is also pertinent to note that CVA Technology Co. Ltd had been testing the system for at least four months before it was officially launched on 1 May. Not considering Valletta residents who are being asked to ignore bills totally, is it necessary for motorists to have to go through the hassle of contesting their bills if the system is “possibly not 100 per cent accurate”?