More than 100,000 cars that crossed to Gozo from Ċirkewwa over the past eight years never went back to Malta, official statistics have shown.
The statistics, issued by the National Statistics Office (NSO), show that between 2010 and 2012, there was a discrepancy of several thousand vehicles – but this got considerably more marked in 2013, when 15,677 vehicles were unaccounted for, with no clear explanation as to what might have happened to them.
The figures emerged from data given by Gozo Channel to the NSO.
According to the ferry company in its official explanation of the discrepancy to the National Audit Office, the source of the counts is different: the one at Mġarr is taken from the tickets sold while the other at Ċirkewwa is done by employees through a tally clock,  so it is subject to human error.
Some of these vehicles would be new ones imported to Gozo – but the figure has to be seen in the context of 24,888 new vehicles being registered for the whole of Malta and Gozo in 2017.
The discrepancy had already raised the concerns of the National Audit Office in 2013, and it did a follow-up exercise in 2016, although the figures now available show that they might only have…