Tough love not enough

THE PRIME Minister’s January 7 announcement of a possible window of reprieve for errant drivers does little to quell the sense of chaos surrounding the state’s roll-out of a new regime of road traffic fines. Compassion is a virtue.

But even better would be efficiency at the licensing division, the works ministry and within law enforcement.

We’re all for stiffer fines. We’re all for measures to bolster road safety. We’re all for dealing with lawlessness – though it would be good if the state showed the same fervour in tackling murders, kidnappings and other serious offences as it is showing in relation to traffic infringements.

But it’s precisely because Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar believes this country is a “lawless dump” that her government should have been far better prepared to deal with the logistics of a mass rush to comply once the steeper fines took effect.

Eli Zakour’s claim that “since assuming office, we realised the lawlessness is worse than we thought” is strange. From the very get-go of Kamla 2.0, the UNC took aim at the demerit points system designed to punish repeat offenders and radically gutted it, claiming it was not working.

Was that action, taken without consultation and in the face of warnings by road safety lobby groups, done before the transport minister and the Cabinet were apprised of all the data?

Mr Zakour’s suggestion, too, that the Government provided the country enough notice of the changes through mention in parliamentary debates on December 5 and December 9 is also derisible.

That he signed the order bringing all the new fines into effect mere days before Christmas – the relevant notice was published on December 25 – was the opposite of transparency.

Perhaps the government wished to clear the way for revenue-boosting fines all along. Even if that was so, what should have been obvious was that people would need time to digest changes and comply. Mrs Persad-Bissessar’s belated three and seven-day grace periods acknowledge this.

The UNC inherited a degree of public-sector bedlam from the PNM. But it should not have missed the need for a more realistic timeline, and it should not have neglected to bolster capacity at government offices in preparation for an onslaught.

Instead, chaos and suffering reigned.

An “administrative error” resulted in the wrong fines being applied by the ministry. Licensing division offices, like those in the capital city and in Caroni, have been swamped. A parliament committee this week heard a litany of horrors about inept traffic enforcement.

It’s as if those who wish to obey the law are to be punished.

If we are indeed a lawless country, the state itself is one reason. That’s the reality Persad-Bissessar’s tough-love approach misses completely.