The government plans to pay drivers €25,000 if they give up their licence for five years, Times of Malta is informed.
Aimed at reducing the number of cars on Malta’s roads, the measure is expected to be announced soon alongside a number of other such policies.
Licence holders who own a car and have been driving in Malta for at least seven years will be offered €5,000 a year for five years in exchange for giving up their licence.
Drivers who have a change of heart and decide they want their licence back during that time will have to pay an undisclosed penalty to do so.
The measure will only apply to owners of passenger cars – meaning motorbikes, commercial vans and other such vehicles will be excluded – and will apply to all car-owning drivers with seven years of experience, irrespective of age.
While policymakers privately acknowledge that they would like Maltese citizens to be the primary beneficiaries, anyone who qualifies will be eligible.
Cabinet has already approved the measure but some of its detail is still being fleshed out, sources said.
One aspect which has yet to be clarified is what form the payment to applicants will take. Payments could be made in the form of cash grants, which would bump up government expenditure, or tax rebates, which would instead reduce government income.
Nevertheless, government sources said they are keen to introduce the measure this year.
The policy is among those forming the first phase of traffic-reducing measures pledged by Transport Minister Chris Bonett. Measures will continue to be rolled out across an 18-month period and are expected to cost tens of millions of euros in total.
Malta’s problem with traffic is well-documented and official statistics lay out the extent of the problem.
As of the end of last year, there were 445,711 registered motor vehicles in Malta. Over 70 per cent of those, 313,665, were private cars, National Statistics Office data shows – a 20 per cent increase over the same figure a decade earlier, in 2014.
While the government has invested extensively in road infrastructure and subsidies to make public buses free of charge in the past years, attempts to limit the growing flow of traffic have been otherwise limited.
A much-promoted report into a metro system unveiled in 2021 proved to be a pre-electoral red herring and suggestions of dissuading drivers by introducing unpopular measures such as parking fees or congestion charges – or removing subsidies on fuel – have been shot down.
Offering drivers a cash incentive to turn in their licence is an unusual policy move, with few parallels globally. Far more common are car scrappage schemes, in which drivers are offered a cash or tax incentive to scrap old vehicles in favour of newer, less polluting ones. Malta has had such a scheme in place for years.
Policymakers admit that the €25,000 incentive will not be a silver bullet to solve traffic woes but argue that it is part of a broader series of measures intended to get cars off the road.
In an extensive interview last autumn, Bonett had also suggested finding ways of encouraging young people to not get a licence in the first place, increasing the use of ferries and introducing a new category of licence plate that would restrict drivers to using those vehicles at set days or times.
Soon after, Bonett formally unveiled several traffic-busting ideas for public feedback.
The measures span all aspects of transportation, from cycling strategy documents to plans to overhaul Malta’s public bus routes and are focused on incentivising behavioural change rather than punishing road users, the minister said.