When a gov­ern­ment shows it has no vi­sion for growth, no plan for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and no courage to re­form it­self, it does the eas­i­est thing pos­si­ble: it fines the peo­ple.

Let me be clear from the out­set, we are not against road safe­ty, and we are not against a law-abid­ing so­ci­ety. Rules mat­ter. En­force­ment mat­ters. What we re­ject is a cal­lous, op­por­tunis­tic ap­proach that treats com­pli­ance as a rev­enue strat­e­gy and cit­i­zens as bal­ance-sheet en­tries rather than part­ners in na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The re­cent ex­plo­sion in mo­tor ve­hi­cle fines is not about safe­ty. It is about rev­enue, quick, puni­tive rev­enue, ex­tract­ed from cit­i­zens al­ready bur­dened by ris­ing costs.

What is wor­ry­ing is that this was not ac­ci­den­tal. It was cal­cu­lat­ed.

Dur­ing the last gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made a di­rect and re­as­sur­ing promise to mo­torists, “We will re­move the de­mer­it points sys­tem.” That pledge res­onat­ed be­cause the sys­tem was wide­ly viewed as ar­bi­trary, in­con­sis­tent­ly ap­plied and open to abuse. Peo­ple be­lieved re­lief was com­ing.

What they were not told was that the re­moval of de­mer­it points was not re­form, it was prepa­ra­tion.

On Ju­ly 13, 2025, the gov­ern­ment for­mal­ly re­moved the de­mer­it point sys­tem for most traf­fic vi­o­la­tions, pre­sent­ing this as a ful­fil­ment of a ma­jor cam­paign promise. What was not ex­plained to the pub­lic at the time was that the le­gal ground­work for sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er traf­fic fines was be­ing put in­to place.

Then on Christ­mas Day, De­cem­ber 25, 2025, while fam­i­lies were cel­e­brat­ing and the coun­try was dis­tract­ed, the Gov­ern­ment qui­et­ly put two key le­gal no­tices in­to ef­fect. One dou­bled most of the traf­fic fines that or­di­nary mo­torists face every day. The oth­er in­creased cus­toms fees and con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion charges, push­ing up costs for busi­ness­es as well.

Just days lat­er, on Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, those in­creas­es be­came re­al. Overnight, the vast ma­jor­i­ty of traf­fic of­fences, about 85 per cent, now car­ry much high­er penal­ties. There were no warn­ings, no ad­just­ment pe­ri­od and no pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign to help peo­ple un­der­stand what had changed. Mo­torists did not ease in­to a new sys­tem; they were dropped in­to it, and en­force­ment fol­lowed im­me­di­ate­ly.

Road­blocks ap­peared quick­ly and in force. Of­fi­cers were de­ployed in vis­i­ble num­bers. Fines were is­sued ag­gres­sive­ly. The mes­sage was clear: when the State wants to col­lect mon­ey, it can move with re­mark­able speed and ef­fi­cien­cy.

For years, we have been told that fix­ing li­cens­ing back­logs is com­pli­cat­ed, that digi­tis­ing sys­tems takes time and that traf­fic court de­lays are struc­tur­al. Yet when rev­enue was at stake, none of those ob­sta­cles seemed to ex­ist.

Pub­lic back­lash was in­evitable. Re­ports of ar­bi­trary en­force­ment and abuse of au­thor­i­ty fol­lowed. Mo­torists felt tar­get­ed rather than pro­tect­ed. On­ly then did the Gov­ern­ment be­gin to soft­en its stance.

In re­sponse, on Jan­u­ary 8, 2026, it an­nounced plans for a new “Fixed Penal­ty No­tice Warn­ing Sys­tem.” Un­der this pro­pos­al, mo­torists would be giv­en a short win­dow to fix mi­nor prob­lems. But this promise of re­straint came on­ly af­ter the dam­age was done, and it ex­posed a deep­er lev­el of in­com­pe­tence.

Any new warn­ing sys­tem will not ap­ply retroac­tive­ly. Mo­torists who were al­ready fined will re­ceive no re­funds, no cred­its and no amnesty. The penal­ties im­posed un­der the cur­rent law will stand, and en­force­ment will con­tin­ue un­til an amend­ment to the leg­is­la­tion is passed in Par­lia­ment.

And this is where the in­jus­tice be­comes im­pos­si­ble to ig­nore.

Those mo­torists re­ceived no warn­ings, no grace pe­ri­od and no dis­cre­tion. Many paid im­me­di­ate­ly to avoid court ap­pear­ances or fur­ther penal­ties. Oth­ers are now car­ry­ing fi­nan­cial bur­dens for mi­nor de­fects they would have cor­rect­ed with­in days had a warn­ing sys­tem ex­ist­ed.

The re­sult is a two-tier sys­tem cre­at­ed by poor plan­ning, one group pun­ished at full force, an­oth­er promised gen­tler treat­ment lat­er, based pure­ly on tim­ing, not be­hav­iour. That is not fair­ness. That is ad­min­is­tra­tive chaos.

And once again, when cit­i­zens need­ed lead­er­ship, it was ab­sent.

At the Gov­ern­ment’s first post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence for the year, amid grow­ing con­cern over fines, en­force­ment prac­tices and abuse of pow­er, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar chose not to at­tend. In­stead, she went to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah for the of­fi­cial open­ing of the Fla­va Food Culi­nary Fes­ti­val.

Lead­er­ship is about pres­ence. When peo­ple are anx­ious, re­as­sur­ance can­not be out­sourced.

Let us be clear, no one is op­pos­ing safer roads. What we op­pose is gov­er­nance that sub­sti­tutes pun­ish­ment for plan­ning, en­force­ment for ed­u­ca­tion and rev­enue ex­trac­tion for re­form.

If safe­ty were tru­ly the pri­or­i­ty, ed­u­ca­tion would have come first, warn­ings sec­ond, phased im­ple­men­ta­tion third and en­force­ment last. In­stead, fines came first, and every­thing else fol­lowed on­ly af­ter pub­lic out­rage.

A gov­ern­ment with ideas grows an econ­o­my. A gov­ern­ment with­out ideas fines its cit­i­zens. As the Prime Min­is­ter her­self once said, “You can­not tax a coun­try in­to pros­per­i­ty.”

A law-abid­ing so­ci­ety is built on clear rules ap­plied fair­ly and con­sis­tent­ly, not on sur­prise penal­ties, un­equal treat­ment. When the State cre­ates con­fu­sion and in­con­sis­ten­cy, it is not restor­ing or­der; it is man­u­fac­tur­ing dis­or­der.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and At­tor­ney at Law

e-mail-pa­tri­ot­ic.front.tt@gmail.com