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Karl Schembri
If you’ve failed your driving test countless times, consider having another go now as pass rates have soared by over 20 per cent in the wake of the cash for licences scandal under new examiners.
The effect of the clean sweep at the Transport Authority’s testing department since the scandal broke out is a staggering increase in driving students getting their licence much quicker – from around 50 per cent of failures, the pass rate has now shot up to 70 per cent.
The latest figure is of June, right in the midst of the bribery scandal when five out of the six examiners were suspended as more information about their alleged corrupt practices were coming out in the press.
Two of them, Roderick Galea and Jason Buttigieg, pleaded guilty in court last Wednesday to charges of receiving bribes from a motoring school in a case that implicates Saviour Abela of Swallow Garage.
Ever since May 2004, when the new test was introduced, the number of failures increased four-fold, rising from 11 per cent in 2003 to 38 per cent in 2004. Excluding the dying months of the old test, the fail rate was an unsparing 52 per cent.
A Transport Authority spokesperson said there were three examiners in June under whom the pass rate averaged around 70 per cent. Another three examiners were engaged this month.
The suspended examiners’ recruitment was found to have been seriously problematic by the inquiry board set up by Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett, which found that their poor training and supervision “probably led to an exceptionally large number of failures that exasperated an already difficult situation”.
In fact, one of the examiners, Nicolai Magrin, son of Management Enforcement Officer Alfred Magrin, was then already facing serious drug abuse problems – a fact totally ignored by the authority upon his recruitment.
“Not enough attention seems to have been given at this crucial stage to the quality of the selected persons in order to nip in the bud any potential serious problems that could eventually crop up,” the inquiry says. “One driving examiner, for example, had serious substance abuse problems even at the time of recruitment. This problem should have been given particular attention given that one behavioural condition that driving examiners were to seek to address in candidates undertaking driving tests was that they should be able to retain the full use of their faculties while driving by being, amongst other things, free of any traits of addiction that could pose a safety hazard on the road.”
The spokesperson said three new examiners were recruited from ADT’s Enforcement Section through an interviewing board made of Major Peter Ripard and Chief Executive Gianfranco Selvaggi.
“The people selected already had extensive knowledge on matters relating to road users,” the spokesperson said. “The ETC had also forwarded the name of an individual with BSM and DSA UK Certification. The compliment of staff included an internal road traffic consultant. All the new temporary examiners sat for a two-week intensive course.”
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2005/03/20/t15.html
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