It was only a Valletta CVA bill that uncovered a blunder Transport Malta committed almost 10 years ago when it issued the same plates to two different cars.

Transport Malta admitted the mistake when it received questions from this newspaper after a man received a CVA bill and saw a different car to his entering Valletta.

Aaron Cutajar, 25, drives a convertible Renault Megane with registration plates BCG 986 but the car he saw in the photos entering Valletta at 11am on February 7 was a Kia Piccanto.

“The bill was just for 82c but it was not the point. I knew something was wrong because I know I was not in Valletta. So I went to CVA demanding to see the photos and that was when I confirmed my suspicion: the plates were mine but the car wasn’t. And my plates were never stolen,” Mr Cutajar told The Sunday Times of Malta.

He said that what made him angrier was the fact that despite reporting the matter to the Transport Malta in May, when he received the first bill, he had never heard back from the watchdog. Several telephone calls and visits to its customer care centre also failed to get the matter solved. He even filed a police report about the matter.

But Transport Malta told this newspaper that an internal investigation had revealed that a blunder had been committed in 2009 and that this had gone unnoticed ever since.

“Transport Malta investigated this incident and found out that the front number plate of the blue Piccanto vehicle is incorrect. The plate was stamped in 2009 by mistake. The front plate should read BCG 968 and not BCG 986.  TM will be sending a letter to owner of the Kia Picanto to have his front plate changed. The Authority will also inform CVA to issue the invoice to the Kia Picanto owner,” a Transport Malta spokesman said.

TM did not reply to questions on whether it was investigating how the Piccanto had passed so many VRT tests over the years without anyone noticing that the back and front plates were different.