Some mysteries relate to the belief in the supernatural. Others may be just cases of mismanagement and the attempt to shroud it with arcane arguments. The National Statistics Office indicates that in recent years cars have been “disappearing” from Gozo after crossing over from Malta for free. Surely, there must be a simple explanation for these extraordinary statistics.

According to the NSO, 15,677 vehicles that crossed to Gozo from Ċirkewwa in 2013 were unaccounted for as records show that they did not return to Malta. More than 100,000 cars seem to have vanished sometime after crossing to Gozo in the last eight years. Considering that taking a car to Gozo can only be done by using the Gozo ferries, Gozo Channel must explain what is behind this mystery.

In a communication to the National Audit Office, the ferry company argues that the discrepancy between the number of cars leaving Ċirkewwa to Mġarr and those that travel the other way can be attributed to the different methods of counting vehicles going to and returning from Gozo. The car count from Mġarr is taken from tickets sold while the other at Ċirkewwa is done by the employees through a tally clock. So “human error”, according to Gozo Channel, is a reasonable explanation for the disappearing vehicles.

However, the mystery gets more complicated. In 2016, the NAO found that 13,000 passengers and 600 vehicles had been carried by the Gozo ferries but not recorded in the electronic ticketing system, giving rise to strong suspicious of “tampering”. The State auditors also found a handwritten note in a Gozo Channel report indicating that, between January and December 2016, over 2,000 vehicles were not mapped to any ferry. Tickets were purchased and cars going to the marshalling area were never getting on the ferry. The Auditor General, understandably, remarked that it was pretty obvious that terminal duty officers were tampering with the scanners and this did not involve only headcounts but ticket sales, that is, revenue.

Gozo Channel chairman, Joe Cordina, who is an accountant by profession, in an interview with this newspaper in 2015 expressed his frustration at being unable to explain the discrepancies in vehicle and passenger counts at Ċirkewwa and Mġarr. He insists that the most effective way to solve this mystery and to curb abuse is to have payment booths at both Ċirkewwa and Mġarr.

However, he still believes that “human error” is behind the mystery of vanishing vehicles and passengers. He also used some political guile when he stated that one of the biggest disasters for Gozo Channel is the €15 million terminal at Ċirkewwa (built under the previous administration) that has no ticketing facilities.

Gozo Channel is a public company that enjoys a monopolistic status. It is, therefore, in the public’s interest that the mystery of vanishing vehicles is resolved. The ferry company is planning to provide a fast ferry service while still preserving its present monopolistic status for current services. The Gozo community is clamouring for a fourth ferry to back up the present service. Presumably, when these projects take off they will be financed by public funds.

The ferry company, as well as the NAO, should not accept the argument of human error when tampering is a more likely explanation for vanishing vehicles.

This is a Times of Malta print editorial