A VRT station has had its licence revoked by Transport Malta after it issued 13 pass certificates without carrying out a test, issued six pass certificates for failed tests and issued another five pass certificates for incomplete tests.

All the cases happened last month.

The operator has been fined €11,000. 

Transport Malta, which did not name the station, said it had carried out an extensive investigation before deciding to strike off the station.

"The breaches were serious enough for TM to shut down the station immediately and revoke its tester's licence. The tester can no longer work in any VRT station and the station has been disconnected from the system."

The operator has the right to appeal before the Administrative Review Tribunal. The station will remain shut down unless the tribunal decides otherwise. The vehicles which were found to have obtained illegitimate pass certificates will have to redo the test.

Transport Malta explained that data collected from VRT stations is analysed on a regular basis and used to identify those stations that pose a risk of non-compliance. 

Surveillance on all VRT stations is carried out on an ongoing basis and includes covert and random spot-check inspections, full day inspections and also randomly calling in and re-inspecting certain vehicles that would have just passed a VRT test.

On a yearly basis, the technical unit within Transport Malta carries out around 300 full-day and spot-check inspections at VRT Stations and retests more than 1,200 vehicles.  

In recent years, Transport Malta revoked six operator licences and another five tester licences.