Transport Minister: Fixed penalty tickets cannot be paid in instalments

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter Eli Za­k­our con­firmed yes­ter­day that there are no pro­vi­sions for a pay­ment plan for fixed penal­ty tick­ets.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing by the UNC, Za­k­our was asked to com­ment on the case of co­conut ven­dor Ravi Ba­boolal, who has ap­pealed for ad­di­tion­al time to pay a to­tal of $19,000 in fines.

“There are no pro­vi­sions in the law to have a pay­ment plan for tick­ets. That has to be done at the lev­el of the courts,” the min­is­ter said.

Ba­boolal was stopped at a po­lice road­block in San Fer­nan­do on Sun­day night, where he re­ceived six tick­ets. The of­fences in­clud­ed dri­ving with­out a valid in­sur­ance pol­i­cy, op­er­at­ing a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid in­spec­tion cer­tifi­cate, fail­ing to com­ply with a po­lice of­fi­cer’s di­rec­tive, emit­ting ex­ces­sive smoke or vapour from his ve­hi­cle, us­ing de­fec­tive tyres, and car­ry­ing an un­se­cured load. He has un­til Feb­ru­ary 3 to set­tle the fines.

Pub­lic re­ac­tion to Ba­boolal’s sit­u­a­tion has been mixed, with some ex­press­ing em­pa­thy while oth­ers take a stricter view. Ba­boolal has said he re­mains un­cer­tain how he will pay the fines and is re­quest­ing more time.

The co­conut ven­dor, who sells his goods at Li­brary Cor­ner, ad­mit­ted re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for all of­fences ex­cept the in­sur­ance vi­o­la­tion. On Tues­day, he showed Guardian Me­dia an in­sur­ance pol­i­cy set to ex­pire on Jan­u­ary 27.

Ba­boolal al­so ac­knowl­edged that his dri­ver’s per­mit was sus­pend­ed last year and that he nev­er ap­plied for re­in­state­ment. With­out his van, he is now re­liant on a whole­saler to trans­port co­conuts and re­move co­conut shells. He has yet to meet with his at­tor­ney to dis­cuss con­test­ing the $10,000 in­sur­ance tick­et.