Lee An­na Ma­haraj

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s al­ter­ca­tion be­tween a traf­fic war­den and an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer, the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port is re­mind­ing the pub­lic that dri­vers who dis­obey or ob­struct a traf­fic war­den from do­ing his or her job are li­able to a fine of $10,000 and six months im­pris­on­ment.

In a state­ment on Tues­day af­ter­noon, the min­istry ex­pressed its con­cern over the re­cent vi­ral video where an off-du­ty cop at­tempt­ed to ar­rest a traf­fic war­den.

The Min­istry stat­ed:

“Sec­tion 10A(3) of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act (MVR­TA) states: ‘any dri­ver who fails to com­ply with the di­rec­tions giv­en by a Traf­fic War­den while on du­ty or ob­structs a Traf­fic War­den in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ty, or aids or in­cites any oth­er per­son not to com­ply with the di­rec­tions of a Traf­fic War­den or to ob­struct a Traf­fic War­den in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ty, is guilty of an of­fense and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of ten thou­sand dol­lars and im­pris­on­ment for six months’,”.

They al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that the traf­fic war­dens are ap­point­ed by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and that any­one who in­ter­feres with their du­ties should be dealt with in ac­cor­dance with the law. The MOWT stat­ed that they are await­ing the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to this mat­ter.

Yes­ter­day, the act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er, Ear­la Christo­pher, sus­pend­ed the of­fi­cer in ques­tion and im­me­di­ate­ly in­struct­ed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be launched sur­round­ing the cir­cum­stances seen in the video footage.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to TTPS for an up­date on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they said that the in­ves­ti­ga­tions are still on­go­ing, and wit­ness­es are be­ing in­ter­viewed.