Infrastructure Secretary, Transport Minister to discuss licensing operations in Tobago

THA SECRETARY OF INFRASTRUCTURE, Quarries and Urban Development Trevor James and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan have agreed to meet to discuss the operations of the Licensing Division in Tobago.

James, in a brief WhatsApp response to Newsday on Tuesday, confirmed they would meet virtually at a date to be decided.

He gave no further details.

Last month, James and Sinanan clashed over a joint road-traffic enforcement and education exercise, which was carried out on the island from April 13-19.

During the exercise by the Licensing Division and the police, hundreds of drivers – including Chief Secretary Farley Augustine's wife Taky-Ana Nedd-Augustine – were issued with tickets for various infractions.

Augustine later accused Trinidad-based licensing officers of “terrorising” Tobagonians.

He described them as disruptive, saying, “It should never be that we have hordes of officers coming up from Trinidad to terrorise Tobagonians…There must be a measure of respect with how they do their duties.”

James subsequently wrote to Sinanan demanding that he remove the Trinidadian licensing officers from Tobago.

In a letter dated April 19, James also told the minister the exercise by licensing officers was done without collaboration "or even the common courtesy of informing my division."

This, he said, constituted an affront to his authority, the THA and people of Tobago.

"This situation therefore constrains me to request that you act with expedition to remove those officers who have been here in Tobago over the last fortnight, and over whom this matter has arisen; and to further admonish that your ministry resists any further inclination to continue, in any wise, in this modus operandi that constitutes an overreach of your authority," James said.

Nevertheless, James invited Sinanan “to an urgent discussion for the development of the necessary protocols and systems to better prosecute transport and licensing services” between Tobago and Trinidad.

He said the matter was of “urgent administrative and social importance” and must be addressed.

He said the " influx" of Trinidad-based licensing officers had caused "a disturbing level of administrative and social unease," and there had been a chorus of calls for the THA Executive Council to intervene.

The Transport Ministry's Tobago Division of the Motor Vehicle Authority’s report on the exercise, carried out in ten areas across the island, said 692 fixed-penalty notices were issued to drivers and 29 drivers were served with driver disqualification notices owing to accumulated demerit points.

The exercises involved police from the Scarborough Traffic Section, Task Force and Shirvan Police Station with support from officers from Roxborough and Charlotteville police stations, together with police road safety co-ordinator Sgt Brent Batson and Licensing Division officers.