There are no new pro­ce­dures for mu­sic trucks, be­ing used for Car­ni­val, to get ap­proval from the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Bas­deo Go­sine.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Go­sine said: “Over the years, we have a long es­tab­lished pro­ce­dure to deal with that is­sue and that pro­ce­dure has not changed since I as­sumed of­fice.”

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 49 of the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act:

“No mu­si­cal in­stru­ment shall be played, no noisy in­stru­ment shall be played or op­er­at­ed in any mo­tor ve­hi­cle, whilst in mo­tion, ex­cept on the writ­ten per­mis­sion of the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty; and any per­son who plays or op­er­ates any such in­stru­ment in con­tra­ven­tion of this reg­u­la­tion and the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle who per­mits such an in­stru­ment to be played or op­er­at­ed is each guilty of an of­fence against this reg­u­la­tion.”

“This reg­u­la­tion has been en­forced for quite a while and we have giv­en per­mis­sion over the years with the same pro­ce­dures. We have not changed,” Go­sine said.

Ear­li­er this week a mes­sage be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing around so­cial me­dia that claimed per­sons with mu­sic trucks were be­ing giv­en a “run-around” by li­cense of­fice when try­ing to seek the req­ui­site ap­provals.

One man com­plained that he was in­struct­ed to load the mu­sic equip­ment on the truck and bring it in for in­spec­tion.

This claim has baf­fled Go­sine as he told Guardian Me­dia he is yet to re­ceive any ap­pli­ca­tions with re­gard to mu­sic trucks.

The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion set up a one-stop shop at its Queen's Park Sa­van­nah of­fice to deal with ap­pli­ca­tions for peo­ple seek­ing spe­cial per­mits to op­er­ate ve­hi­cles on re­strict­ed Car­ni­val routes. Of­fi­cials from both the Po­lice Ser­vice and Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty were on hand to fa­cil­i­tate the process.