Taxpayers had to stump up almost €6 million to sustain the controlled vehicular access to Valletta as expenditure was twice the revenue, figures show.
While the Government has paid €11.7 million for the operation of the CVA system since its introduction, only €5.8 million was raised through fees paid by motorists for entering the capital.
These figures prompted Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to declare last month that the Government wanted to revise the system that was costing the Exchequer an average of €1 million a year more than it rakes in through charges.
The system was introduced in May 2007. Each month, an average 80,500 vehicles enter the charging zone, which excludes the Valletta ring road, but most of them do not even pay because they exit the city before the 30-minute time window is up.
This figure is more than double the 33,000 cars that subscribed to the V licence scheme of the past.
Not only has the CVA been running at a loss, but it proved to be unpopular with residents, shop owners and also infrequent visitors.
The Valletta local council has already declared it was in favour of revising the system – something it had been wanting for quite some time – but is against it being scrapped.
In the first eight months of operation, the system had already made a loss of €1.5 million, with the Government stumping up €1.7 million in expenses and only collecting €191,171 in revenue.
Although revenue picked up in 2008, with just over €1 million being collected in charges, the Government still paid the operator €1.85 million. This deficit was slimmer in 2009 (€778,177) when the Government paid the operator €2 million and received €1.2 million in charges.
The situation was similar in 2010 when the Government paid almost €2 million in expenses but only collected €1.1 million in charges.
In 2011, expenses amounted to €2 million while revenue totalled €1.15 million.
Last year, more than €2.11 million were paid in expenses but only just over €1 million collected in charges.
Figures of vehicular traffic show that the amount of cars entering the precincts of the CVA zone without being charged stood at almost 187,000 last year – an increase of 7,000 over the previous year and 15,000 more than when the system was introduced.
Most of them do not even pay because they exit within 30 minutes
There were more than 87,000 cars that entered the CVA zone in 2012 but spent less than 30 minutes and, therefore, did not need to pay any charges.
Almost 11,000 cars are exempt from paying CVA charges. Although statistics do not qualify whether these are residents, according to the Electoral Register there are about 5,000 Valletta residents.
In 2012, 51,474 cars entered the CVA zone and paid less than €40 in charges throughout the year. Just over 800 cars paid between €40 and €50 that year and 3,089 motorists paid more than €50 last year.
A spokesman said the Government was planning to start discussions with a view to coming up with concrete proposals by the end of the year.