Works and Infrastructure Minister Jack Warner has placed blame squarely on the shoulders of the police for the four-hour massive traffic pile-up along the north-bound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway yesterday morning. Speaking to reporters after the re-opening of Sinaswee Street, Carapichaima, yesterday morning, Warner said the police could have managed the situation differently and averted the traffic nightmare commuters had to face. There was traffic gridlock stretching for several miles after a vehicle smashed into lightpole, causing it to fall across the roadway near Grand Bazaar. Warner said: "People were stuck there for four hours. That can't be right. "I was surprised the police did not, for example, use a lane from the south-bound end of the highway. That was the thing to do.
"Here it is, you have the south-bound lane that was empty, literally, and the north-bound lane massive traffic jam. It tells you sometimes we have to think on our feet." Permanent secretary in Warner's ministry, Cheryl Blackman, said if the police had required permission to open up the other lane, they could have called Warner and something would have been put in place. "That would not have been a problem. We could have done it instantly," Blackman said. She said at present there were no contingency plans for an emergency of that nature but some kind of plan would be put in place to avoid that happening in the future.