A system where local wardens will be issue warnings, rather than citations, is earmarked for introduction at the beginning of the year.
Parliamentary Secretary Chris Said told timesofmalta.com today that the system will be introduced for offences which are not very serious and are not dangerous.
"The system may be introduced for, say, certain parking offences, but it will not apply for people jumping a red light," Dr Said said.
He explained that all people will start with a clean slate and once they are found to have committed a minor offence, they will be issued a ticket as a warning, but will not be required to pay the fine as long as a repeat offence is not committed within a certain period - probably one year.
The new system, which is still under discussion, will also see the introduction of incremental fines. Therefore, while the penalty for the first offence may be lower than at present, it will get higher with the second and subsequent offences.
"We are not raising fines, but bringing about compliance," Dr Said said.
"The councils' regional committees stand to lose revenue from this system in order to achieve compliance. Indeed, revenue from offences has already been in decline over the past two years," Dr Said observed, adding that funding for the councils has been raised by the government.
The new system, he said, will not apply solely for traffic but also other offences, such as littering.
COUNCILS NO LONGER DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE
Dr Said also pointed out that since September, the system had been changed so that local councils were no longer directly responsible for the assignment of the wardens, and this role was taken over by regional committees.
As a result, the temptation of having councils deploy the wardens where they are likely to issue most tickets - rather than where they are most needed - has been removed.
Before September, some councils unfortunately had been using the wardens as a revenue-raising measure, deploying them where they could issue most tickets. Now the wardens are deployed by the regional committees, and the revenue from fines is used on regional projects," Dr Said said.
As a result, he said, more wardens are being deployed in, say, monitoring skips to ensure there is no illegal dumping, even though more revenue will have been made had they been deployed at roundabouts.