ADT fails to issue number plates for two new hearses

Undertaker Karmenu Mifsud of Qormi, who has spent over Lm90,000 to import two brand new Mercedes-Benz hearses, has been waiting for over six weeks for the Transport Authority (ADT) to issue the number plates.

Mr Mifsud took the decision to import the hearses - a third is on order and is expected to arrive in October - after a decision given by the Commission for Fair Trading (CFT) on July 5, 2004, established that there exists nothing which could impede any person from entering the motorised hearses' market.

In its decision, the CFT had also emphasised that no entity, including the ADT, had the competence to regulate the market in Malta, which has been operated with ten motor hearses ever since they were purchased in November, 1959.

Mr Mifsud applied for the number plates on April 18, almost six weeks ago. Yet despite the decision by the CFT, he was informed last week that the ADT Board has to sanction his request for number plates.

According to Mr Mifsud's lawyer, Dr Michael Tanti-Dougall: "Following the decision by the CFT, issuing the number plates should be a formality. I cannot really understand why the ADT needs to raise the request made by my client for the issue of new number plates at board level.

"It is a shame that the decision given by the CFT is not being respected. The ADT has no competence over the motor hearse market, let alone the legal right to interfere as it has been doing for the past ten years, denying my client the right to provide funeral services with a modern hearse."

Dr Tanti-Dougall, who was responsible for the drafting of the Competition Act, reiterated: "The CFT's decision unequivocally declares that there exist no restrictions on the relative market which is to operate in accordance with the competition principles advocated by the Competition Act. These principles have been long established within the European Union. Malta, being a member state, is legally and politically committed not only to adhere to them but also to promote competition."

Yet the two high class, brand new hearses, based on the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, are lying in bond at Ta' Qali awaiting their number plates. Their luxury interior includes high quality materials and even lights above the coffin bay.