Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner says that the $1,300 fee currently imposed by Port-of-Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing to retrieve wrecked vehicles in the city will have to be repaid. Warner was speaking with reporters yesterday, during the opening ceremony of the Traffic Warden Training Programme (phase one) at the Special Anti-Crime Unit of T&T (Sautt) Leadership Management Institute at the Chaguaramas Convention Centre. "It is illegal, it is wrong...the law says you cannot charge someone more than $500 for a wrecking service," he said.
"You can't do that and you can't tell me it's a nuisance, so we charge $1,300. "I said it yesterday and I'll say it again...you cannot raise fees for the PNM campaign that way." When asked by reporters why Lee Sing was being allowed to act in this way, Warner responded: "Nothing lasts forever...at some point in time it will come to an end. "We have ways of doing that and the money will have to be refunded...don't worry yourselves," he added. Warner, who lamented on the fact that the idea of traffic wardens took 18 years (since 1993) to be implemented, said over the years, it had become increasingly necessary to replace police officers who are now overseeing the wrecking of vehicles that are illegally parked and issuing tickets for specific traffic violations.
Addressing 87 traffic wardens inducted for training (40 males and 47 females), Warner said he intended to have 300 people trained in the first batch, but since the facilities at the institute could not accommodate that amount, it would have to be done in smaller phases until that mark was reached.
"Every batch will be trained, up to 300 and then I will take in another 200 to 300 again", he said. In giving a mandate to the trainees, Warner said law enforcement must begin with them and that while working hours would not always be favourable, they had been entrusted with the responsibility of bringing back a degree of sanity to our nation's roads and highways. He condemned what he saw as an absence of the transit police on the Priority Bus Route (PBR) and noted that cameras and other means of surveillance would need to be incorporated in order to assist them.
Warner told reporters that while traffic wardens would be deployed mainly in Port-of-Spain, San Fernando and Chaguanas, it was the aim of his ministry to have them dispersed throughout the country.
When asked if the they would be given the power to arrest people in violation of traffic laws, Warner told reporters: "Why not, sure. You can arrest people, too, you know...arrests are no big thing," he added.
Warner was asked about his apparent "no show" on repeated calls to meet with the taxi drivers (who believed he had been purposely avoiding them) to discuss the issue of legalising "PH" taxis. "Every Monday morning a new organisation comes up with the taxi association....I met with the maxi taxi people on their request five times," he said.
Warner had questioned the legitimacy of some of these organisations, namely the Taxi Drivers Network of T&T, which met with both Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and himself (at her request) at a private meeting yesterday. On the legitimacy claim he added: "I asked them when last they met, where is their constitution, where is their minutes, who do they represent, nothing at all, but they crop up hoping, of course, to try to diffuse the attempts to regularise PH taxi drivers...it doesn't make sense." At the ceremony, Warner reminded those present that traffic wardens would be given the task of upholding the soon-to-be enforced traffic regulations which can see drivers being charged $1,500 for using their cellphones whilst driving, from as early as February 18.