Transport Commissioner warns of fake licensing employees

Transport Commissioner Clive Clarke revealed people are posing as employees of the licensing division and selling fake permits.

At the launch of the licensing division mobile bus service in Cumana on Thursday, Clarke said the division was made aware of a new scheme to generate fake permits outside of the division’s new system.

Clarke was responding to a question by Newsday on what was in place to prevent unauthorised transactions on the new mobile buses.

Though he is confident that the new security features are capable of detecting any illicit actions, he is concerned about what is now forming on the outside.

“I’m asking the public when you come to licensing offices, please interact with a staff of the licensing office for permits.

“What is happening again is that persons are purporting to be agents of the agency and therefore have you make certain financial transactions and printing those permits outside of licensing because this kind of activity can no longer happen in our environment.

“We can find them and that's a good thing because when we stop those persons on the nation's roads, we can clearly see by the hand-held device we have, that (their) permits do not form part of our records. So the possibility of someone making that through our organisation is virtually impossible right now. They are being generated on the outside.”

Minister of Transport Rohan Sinanan said the Ministry of Finance is also part of the monitoring system of the division.

“Everything that is done here is in real-time. So once that transaction happens, it is immediately recorded in the database at licensing office. You don’t have to wait for anything to update or for anything to download. Once a transaction is done here the Minister of Finance (Colm Imbert) immediately knows how much money was collected.”