Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our says he has in­struct­ed his min­istry not to is­sue him a Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) pass, in­sist­ing he wants to ex­pe­ri­ence the traf­fic prob­lems of reg­u­lar cit­i­zens.

“I have in­struct­ed the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and the min­istry not to is­sue me a bus route pass at this time,” Za­k­our said. “Traf­fic man­age­ment falls un­der my purview. How can I ad­dress it if I am avoid­ing it? That is why traf­fic did not ease up in the past nine and a half years, be­cause those who were re­spon­si­ble were avoid­ing it.”

Za­k­our, who lives in west Trinidad, would not re­quire a PBR pass for his com­mute to his min­istry to Port-of-Spain but said he ex­pe­ri­ences traf­fic from where he lives.

His com­ments came a day af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced that all ex­ist­ing bus route pass­es—more than 625—will be re­called by Ju­ly 1. She said the move fol­lowed wide­spread con­cerns about the num­ber of pass­es is­sued with­out prop­er doc­u­men­ta­tion or ver­i­fi­ca­tion.

“The pass­es were giv­en out with­out any con­trol or cri­te­ria,” Za­k­our said. “Many of the names were ques­tion­able. There were some who said, ‘I could do this be­cause I have a bus route pass.’”

A list of PBR pass hold­ers has been cir­cu­lat­ing in the pub­lic do­main sev­er­al sports­men, en­ter­tain­ers and busi­ness of­fi­cials were named. Za­k­our de­clined to com­ment on com­plaints about the safe­ty is­sues it posed since li­cence plate num­bers were al­so in­clud­ed.

Za­k­our said the sys­tem was too lax. “Per­sons were re­quest­ing pass­es be­cause they had treat­ment at the health cen­tre or hos­pi­tal, oth­ers for oth­er rea­sons,” he said. “I am work­ing on the list and is­su­ing new poli­cies for the new ones.”

Any­one us­ing a pass af­ter Ju­ly 1 will be tick­et­ed. Pass hold­ers are be­ing asked to re­turn them to the min­istry.

Za­k­our de­clined to com­ment on Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s re­cent call to re­tain the de­mer­it points sys­tem pend­ing a re­view. Kan­ga­loo had raised con­cerns about road safe­ty and ques­tioned whether the frame­work was achiev­ing its in­tend­ed goals.

—KE­JAN HAYNES