Cars reported this year by SMS for belching excessive fumes will be called in for testing as from Monday after Transport Minister Austin Gatt demanded the system be put back in place.
The Malta Transport Authority (ADT) will now spend four days a week going through the backlog caused when it suspended testing.
A new structured emission alert testing system is now in place enabling it to carry out over 180 tests per week, so the backlog should be sorted out within two months, the ADT said.
Messages sent from now on will be seen to straightaway: "This system will see an immediate and efficient address of each SMS report received."
The ADT had said it had stopped operating the old system to restructure the way it processed the SMSs because this was taking too long.
But this information was only forthcoming after an audit report published last week slammed the ADT for having stopped the system "since last year", angering concerned citizens who spent time and money to make the reports. Dr Gatt said yesterday the ADT should assume responsibility for having failed to inform the public that SMS reports of polluting vehicles were not going to be investigated. He said he had demanded that the system be put back in place. In fact, 45 tests are planned to take place daily between Monday and Thursday from next week.
"I got to know about this from your newspaper (The Times). No one had informed me. I think if the Transport Authority was having technical problems with their system and needed time to change it, they should have said so," Dr Gatt said when questioned.
"But taking responsibility does not have to mean resignations," a spokesman for the ministry explained later.
"Certainly, the public is right to be disappointed that the authority suspended the use of the SMS alert without informing it. I too was disappointed. But one must also take into account that there has been no easing in the enforcement on emissions during this time and that therefore the suspension of the SMS service would not warrant the dismissal of employees," Dr Gatt said.
According to figures released to The Times by the authority, since January 2008, 70,500 SMSs were made. But the ADT yesterday clarified that it had only stopped the system in December, which meant that the number of pending messages was only 16,603. These translated into 1,486 vehicles that have been flagged up for testing and which will start being processed on Monday.
"The actual number of reports that were received between January and June 2009 was of 16,603. Out of these, 8,422 matched the criterion in the campaign by which each vehicle had to be reported three times.
These SMSs represent 1,486 vehicles, which require emissions testing and which will be tested as from Monday," an ADT spokesman said.