TPP under fire as MP supports controversial traffic fines

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

To­ba­go East MP David Thomas is back­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) strong stance on road traf­fic in­fringe­ments. How­ev­er, oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties on the is­land be­lieve this is yet an­oth­er ex­am­ple of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) sell­ing out the in­ter­ests of To­bag­o­ni­ans for favour with the Gov­ern­ment.

The par­ties al­so warn that af­ter the Jan­u­ary 12 To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions, To­bag­o­ni­ans will be sub­ject­ed to a se­ries of road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es which are be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced in Trinidad.

On Wednes­day night in Dar­rel Spring/Whim, just af­ter a To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty pub­lic meet­ing, Guardian Me­dia caught up with Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to get his re­ac­tion to the con­tro­ver­sial dou­bling of road traf­fic fines.

How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine de­clined to com­ment and walked away.

Guardian Me­dia sought to re­mind the Chief Sec­re­tary that in 2023, he raised sig­nif­i­cant con­cern af­ter a se­ries of road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es by the Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion in To­ba­go, and he claimed that they were ter­ror­is­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans. Guardian Me­dia asked if he is con­cerned that the fre­quen­cy of road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es in Trinidad will find its way to To­ba­go. How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine would on­ly say, “Not at this time, not at this time.”

To­ba­go East MP David Thomas, how­ev­er, of­fered a view, ex­press­ing his sup­port for the new mea­sures, which the Gov­ern­ment has de­fend­ed as a de­ter­rent to law­less­ness on the na­tion’s road­ways.

“I beg to ask, how do you reg­u­late the be­hav­iours of peo­ple? Which is worse? For some­body to be dri­ving on the road with­out in­sur­ance and cause death or dam­age to life and prop­er­ty or to be pay­ing your in­sur­ance? So the bal­ance must be struck at some point where peo­ple un­der­stand in or­der to keep peo­ple in a con­trolled po­si­tion, there must be laws, there must be guide­lines, there must be poli­cies,” Thomas said.

Asked if he agreed with the high fi­nan­cial penal­ties at­tached to these of­fences, MP Thomas said, “Yes, be­cause let the amount that the fines are serve as a de­ter­rent. Be­cause if you soft­en it, too many peo­ple feel that when they com­mit of­fences, you must just slap them on the hand, right? Let the height of the fines serve as a de­ter­rent.”

Guardian Me­dia then asked the To­ba­go East MP whether he is con­cerned that the fre­quen­cy of road traf­fic ex­er­cis­es crit­i­cised in 2023 could re­turn.

How­ev­er, Thomas said To­bag­o­ni­ans have noth­ing to fear, claim­ing the pre­vi­ous ex­er­cis­es were po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed un­der the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“No, the sit­u­a­tion with the li­cens­ing of­fi­cers was far dif­fer­ent. I looked at the sit­u­a­tion my­self, and the li­cens­ing of­fi­cers used to come here when our fes­tiv­i­ties were in ef­fect, which in my view was coun­ter­pro­duc­tive to our tourism prod­uct. And I be­lieve then that it was mo­ti­vat­ed by the pow­ers that be at that time. And it was a tar­get on To­bag­o­ni­ans. And I would hold fast to that.”

How­ev­er, the leader of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM, An­cil Den­nis, said he was not sur­prised that a TPP MP would sup­port what he de­scribed as an at­tack on the poor.

“This is the kind of hypocrisy that is ex­pect­ed from them. And this is ex­act­ly what we were warn­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go against: that they were elect­ing peo­ple last gen­er­al elec­tion, peo­ple who could not speak for them­selves, peo­ple who could not speak for To­ba­go, and peo­ple who will side with the cen­tral gov­ern­ment no mat­ter what is done. And I want to say that the MP for To­ba­go East, it is shame­ful and dis­re­spect­ful to the peo­ple of To­ba­go for him to once again agree with a po­si­tion tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment that will have a neg­a­tive im­pact up­on the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”

Den­nis warned that To­bag­o­ni­ans are on­ly get­ting a grace pe­ri­od from fines be­cause the Gov­ern­ment does not want to hurt the TPP’s chances at the polls.

“An elec­tion is on the hori­zon, and they be­lieve that they have to wait un­til af­ter the elec­tion be­fore they come here to do their law­ful du­ties be­cause they be­lieve that ex­er­cis­ing the law­ful du­ties at this point in time, es­pe­cial­ly in a sit­u­a­tion of a dou­bling of the fines, will im­pact their chances in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion on Mon­day.”

He said a PNM-run THA will raise ob­jec­tions to the fines and will not be a “pup­pet” of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Mean­while, the In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the TPP MP for To­ba­go East.

“I mean, what do you ex­pect? They are in bed with the UNC, and those are their boss­es. Do you ex­pect them to go against their boss­es? I am very dis­ap­point­ed by it, be­cause in short time, those prices are go­ing to get out of reach for To­ba­go,” posit­ed Dr Denise Tsoifatt-An­gus.

She be­lieves the new fines are a rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing tool and al­so warned that To­bag­o­ni­ans will suf­fer from them next week.

“They’re wait­ing on the elec­tion to fin­ish to do it. It will cause a prob­lem in the elec­tion right now, and there­fore they’re wait­ing un­til the elec­tion is over to start do­ing that the same way that they’re go­ing to be send­ing home the URP and CEPEP work­ers af­ter the elec­tion, be­cause it is a na­tion­al de­ci­sion. And so we don’t ex­pect the TPP to say any dif­fer­ent, be­cause they just can­not de­fend To­ba­go any longer.”