Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achnog@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er their move to dou­ble the fines for cer­tain traf­fic of­fences and in­crease the fees for cer­tain gov­ern­ment ser­vices.

Beck­les made the call in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to the in­creas­es which were re­vealed in a le­gal no­tice in the Gazette on Christ­mas Day.

Beck­les said: “The Prime Min­is­ter must im­me­di­ate­ly re­con­sid­er and re­verse these un­jus­ti­fied price hikes and we de­mand that she comes clean with the na­tion about the true state of the coun­try’s fi­nances.”

She sug­gest­ed the move was an at­tempt by Gov­ern­ment to in­crease rev­enues to fi­nance its first bud­get. She point­ed out that in the 2025/2026 Bud­get ,Gov­ern­ment es­ti­mat­ed po­ten­tial rev­enues based on glob­al oil prices of US$70 a bar­rel, when the cur­rent price is US$56.

“As a re­sult, the Gov­ern­ment has cho­sen to squeeze the pop­u­la­tion through ex­ces­sive tax­a­tion, puni­tive fines, and in­tim­i­da­tion,” Beck­les said.

“These mea­sures are not about pub­lic safe­ty or ac­count­abil­i­ty, but rather, they are a des­per­ate rev­enue-rais­ing ex­er­cise de­signed to keep a fail­ing Gov­ern­ment afloat.”

She ques­tioned the move based on com­ments made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in 2024, while she was Op­po­si­tion leader, in which she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) crit­i­cised ex­or­bi­tant fines for traf­fic of­fences.

“Now in Gov­ern­ment, she has done the ex­act op­po­site, be­tray­ing that promise and bur­den­ing cit­i­zens even fur­ther,” Beck­les said.

Say­ing many cit­i­zens were al­ready strug­gling with the cost of liv­ing, Beck­les said: “To im­pose such ex­or­bi­tant in­creas­es in fines un­der these con­di­tions is a clear in­di­ca­tion that this Gov­ern­ment and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar have no in­ter­est in the fi­nan­cial well-be­ing of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.”

She al­so took is­sue with the fact that cit­i­zens were in­formed based on me­dia re­ports.

“From the se­cre­tive man­ner in which these mea­sures were an­nounced, to the ab­sence of trans­paren­cy and now to the flim­sy, base­less, and mis­lead­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­ing of­fered, this pol­i­cy re­flects poor gov­er­nance and a dis­re­gard for the peo­ple,” Beck­les said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Fi­nance Bri­an Man­ning al­so sug­gest­ed the move was due to the rev­enue short­fall from the can­cel­la­tion of the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) and the wage in­crease of­fered to pub­lic ser­vants rep­re­sent­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA).

“Had the TTRA been im­ple­ment­ed and the ridicu­lous of­fer to pub­lic ser­vants had not been made to win the pre­vi­ous elec­tion, these dra­con­ian mea­sures could have been com­plete­ly avoid­ed,” Man­ning said.

On Sat­ur­day, sev­er­al Cab­i­net mem­bers, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­fend­ed the move to in­crease the fines for some traf­fic of­fences. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it have no im­pact on law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“The on­ly peo­ple who will be af­fect­ed are peo­ple who break the law, so if you can’t op­er­ate your ve­hi­cle with­in the lim­its of the law, you will have to pay the fines,” she said.

Tak­ing own­er­ship of the de­ci­sion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that it was in re­sponse to er­rant dri­vers con­tin­u­ing to breach road traf­fic laws even af­ter her Gov­ern­ment scrapped the much-ma­ligned de­mer­it points sys­tem.

“We re­moved the traf­fic de­mer­it points sys­tem and some per­sons took that as a per­mit to abuse le­nien­cy and break the laws on the roads,” she said.

“So, the fines have been in­creased be­cause some peo­ple’s lack of re­spect for the law and sub-par in­tel­li­gence lev­els sim­ply can’t ac­cept kind­ness and mer­cy, they can on­ly op­er­ate law­ful­ly un­der fear of pun­ish­ment.”

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our, who signed the no­tice based on his dis­cre­tion un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, al­so re­ject­ed any con­cerns over the tim­ing of the an­nounce­ment. Za­k­our not­ed that he raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty in his bud­get con­tri­bu­tion and re­ject­ed claims the move was aimed at rev­enue gen­er­a­tion.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts Dr Shane Mo­hammed and Dr Win­ford James took is­sue with the lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion in re­la­tion to the in­creas­es.

“The is­sue is not what you do, it is how you do it. It is im­por­tant that when you are do­ing cer­tain things, that it should not be leaked and you shouldn’t hear about it on so­cial me­dia, but there must be a clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Gov­ern­ment ex­plain­ing the why, the what and the how,” Mo­hammed said, not­ing cit­i­zens may have felt “hood­winked” by how the in­creas­es be­came pub­lic.

James sug­gest­ed the method cho­sen by Gov­ern­ment might not have been an over­sight on its part.

“Clear­ly, they didn’t want to an­swer any awk­ward ques­tions as a re­sult of that de­vel­op­ment,” James said.

“It’s a kind of dic­ta­to­r­i­al or au­thor­i­tar­i­an ap­proach,” James added.

Al­though Mo­hammed not­ed that gov­ern­ments are free to change their po­si­tion af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice, he sug­gest­ed prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion would en­sure they main­tain the good­will they re­ceived from the elec­torate when they were elect­ed.

“Yes, in­still­ing dis­ci­pline and re­spon­si­ble dri­ving is im­por­tant but on the oth­er hand, ef­fec­tive and prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion is very crit­i­cal as it per­tains to en­sur­ing gov­ern­ment fa­vor­a­bil­i­ty,” Mo­hammed said.

He point­ed out that the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley faced sim­i­lar is­sues with com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“The coun­try is not pre­pared to go through an­oth­er five years where they have not been com­mu­ni­cat­ed with, not spo­ken with, and not di­a­logued with,” Mo­hammed said.

“The coun­try hand­ed Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar a good­will that does not come very of­ten and that should not be tak­en for grant­ed.”

But James said he was not sur­prised by the in­creas­es, which he sug­gest­ed was an ob­vi­ous method for Gov­ern­ment to take to in­crease rev­enue.

“We al­ways knew that she would tax the pop­u­la­tion in or­der to get monies to do de­vel­op­ment. We (the tax­pay­ers) are the ones who have to pay for it,” James said.

How­ev­er, he agreed with Per­sad-Bisses­sar that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens would face no ef­fects of the in­creased fines.