San Fernando mayor Marlene Coudray is appealing to persons with evidence of bribery involving municipal police officers to come forward, as the City Corporation is willing to deal with such claims and bring guilty people to account. Without the evidence, she said, they would have to conclude that the bribery claims were just rumours. Coudray was responding to a report carried on Monday in the T&T Guardian that vendors were being "taxed" $600 to conduct illegal vending from their vehicles along the Gulf View Link Road.
The vendors claim if they do not pay the tax they are issued $1,000 tickets for using their vehicles contrary to registration. Coudray said this was not the first time she had heard such accusations being made against city police officers. She said even when she was chief executive officer of the San Fernando City Corporation she had heard such claims. "Many reports came to the Council but nobody ever comes forward. Until someone comes forward and gives evidence, we cannot deal with it; we will have to continue to treat these claim as just rumours," she said.