DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Cab­i­net has ap­proved an in­crease in the per­mis­si­ble age for im­port­ing for­eign-used, right-hand dri­ve, pri­vate ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing SU­Vs, sedans, and sta­tion wag­ons pow­ered by gaso­line, diesel, or com­pressed nat­ur­al gas. The al­low­able age has been raised from three years to un­der eight years from the date of man­u­fac­ture.

In ad­di­tion, the an­nu­al quo­ta for reg­is­tered deal­ers of for­eign-used cars has been in­creased by 30 per cent, ben­e­fit­ing deal­ers who have ac­tive­ly used their quo­tas over the last three years.

Light com­mer­cial ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing pick­ups and pan­el vans with diesel en­gines, are now el­i­gi­ble for im­port if they are ten years old or younger, up from the pre­vi­ous lim­it of sev­en years.

The an­nounce­ments were made by the Min­is­ter of Trade, In­vest­ment, and Tourism Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, Eli Za­k­our, al­so re­vealed that Cab­i­net ap­proved the es­tab­lish­ment of a reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for the reg­is­tra­tion and man­age­ment of clas­sic, an­tique, and vin­tage ve­hi­cles.

He not­ed that pre­vi­ous re­stric­tions lim­it­ed the law­ful use and eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial of these ve­hi­cles.

Guid­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices, in­clud­ing those of the Fédéra­tion In­ter­na­tionale de l’Au­to­mo­bile (FIA) His­toric Com­mis­sion, and in­formed by sub­mis­sions from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Au­to­mo­bile As­so­ci­a­tion, the min­istry pro­posed a for­mal clas­si­fi­ca­tion and reg­istry sys­tem.

Za­k­our said this frame­work will fa­cil­i­tate the safe and lim­it­ed use of his­toric ve­hi­cles on na­tion­al roads, align­ing with gov­ern­ment ob­jec­tives for trans­port mod­erni­sa­tion, her­itage preser­va­tion, and tourism di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.

He out­lined the three le­gal cat­e­gories:

• ↓Clas­sic mo­tor ve­hi­cles: 25 years old from date of orig­i­nal man­u­fac­ture

• ↓An­tique mo­tor ve­hi­cles: 45 years old

• ↓Vin­tage mo­tor ve­hi­cles: at least 95 years old

When asked why the fo­cus is not sole­ly on es­tab­lish­ing a re­li­able pub­lic trans­port sys­tem, Za­k­our re­spond­ed, “I don’t want to speak for my col­league (Ma­haraj), but by ex­tend­ing the ve­hi­cles, more per­sons will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to af­ford a ve­hi­cle.”

He al­so re­flect­ed on chal­lenges fac­ing the pub­lic trans­port sec­tor, say­ing he in­her­it­ed the PTSC in a dif­fi­cult state, with 71 routes dis­con­tin­ued and on­ly 100 bus­es op­er­a­tional while the coun­try re­quires 300.

“We are work­ing tire­less­ly at the Min­istry and PTSC to im­prove the pub­lic trans­port in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

Re­gard­ing traf­fic con­ges­tion and ve­hi­cle growth, Za­k­our not­ed on­go­ing dis­cus­sions with the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

He al­so an­nounced the launch of a park-and-ride sur­vey ex­pect­ed to­day, propos­ing safe lo­ca­tions in Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va, and San Fer­nan­do where com­muters can park their ve­hi­cles, board PTSC bus­es or maxi-taxi ser­vices, and re­turn to their cars at the end of the day.