It seems that there has been a change of tack somewhere within the ranks of the government’s transport sector.

The increase in the number of vehicles granted a Y-plate – which are the taxi vehicles which one can book through ride-hailing apps such as eCabs, Bolt and Uber – over the course of the past year or so has been noticeable to everyone.

Recently published statistics backed up the perception of many people that there simply seemed to be more and more of these Y-plate vehicles on the road.

Indeed, the National Statistics Office last month reported that the number of registered Y-plate vehicles on Malta’s roads had increased by almost 45% when compared to the first quarter of 2022 to around 3,900.  

The PN’s Transport spokesperson Adrian Delia has for months spoken out about this topic, claiming that there is “abuse across the board” at Transport Malta in the issuing of “thousands” of new plates.

There have also been complaints from Maltese drivers who apply to work with various chauffeuring companies that their Y-plates take around 2 to 3 months to arrive, while foreigners are able to start working within 3 to 4 days.

Delia has also said that the wanton increase in Y-plates granted to foreigners within days of their arrival in Malta has contributed to the increase in accidents seen in the country.

The government’s reaction up until the past week has been either silence or, more recently, defence.  Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia was confronted about the matter in Parliament last month, and he accused Delia of resorting to a bad way of doing politics by plastering the issue across social media.

Asked by Delia whether the government planned to continue to issue “thousands” of Y-plates, Farrugia replied: “Honourable Delia does not understand that the country has seen an increase in population, so every service has to increase, this is demand and supply economics” and questioned whether Delia would cap the amount of plates issued.

However since then it appears that there has been a change of tack from justifying the increase, to issuing new rules and regulations which will clampdown on that same increase.

Chief amongst those new rules is a stipulation that a Y-plate will only be granted to people with a driver’s license from Malta or another EU country.  Before this new rule was approved, if Y-plate drivers had a driver’s licence from outside the EU, they were still granted the Y-plate but given a one-year notice to get a Maltese or EU license.

Furthermore, Transport Malta will also be enforcing that a Y-plate may only be granted when an architect's report confirming the availability of adequate garage space or legal private off-street parking for that vehicle.  This is because a Y-plate vehicle may not be parked outside for over an hour.

It appears that there has also been a significant increase in enforcement, as Transport Malta has been at pains to point out by publishing press releases detailing the inspections.

One must therefore question what type of enforcement was being done prior to this week.  Was the enforcement being done and Transport Malta simply forgot to boast about it?  Or has there now been political direction to specifically crack down on this issue and make it seen that they are cracking down on it?

Should it have even taken this long to introduce these changes and – especially – introduce this type of roadside enforcement?

Do these new measures confirm that the system for the issuing of these Y-plates was not correct in the first place? 

An investigation into whether Delia’s claims that there is something of a racket going on for foreign nationals to be granted a Y-plate in an expedited manner is certainly warranted, because if this were to be the case – then someone, somewhere, must have been benefitting when they shouldn’t have.