Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Two hun­dred and eight ve­hi­cles have been towed since wreck­ing re­sumed in the cap­i­tal city on May 29.

This has al­so led to just over $100,000 be­ing col­lect­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers in penal­ty fees. Of­fi­cers al­so claimed $30,000 af­ter is­su­ing 30 tick­ets to er­rant dri­vers.

Speak­ing out­side City Hall yes­ter­day, Sgt Ravi Ma­haraj, of the Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, said at the time of the in­ter­view, 208 ve­hi­cles were towed, with mo­torists hav­ing to pay $500 for a ve­hi­cle to be re­leased.

He said many of the ve­hi­cles wrecked be­longed to po­lice of­fi­cers. How­ev­er, Ma­haraj said res­i­dents of Wood­brook are re­lieved, as some were of­ten trapped in their homes by dri­vers park­ing in front of their gates.

Taxi dri­vers from the St Ann’s and St James taxi stands, he said, al­so wel­comed the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing, since it led to a de­crease in the num­ber of il­le­gal­ly parked ve­hi­cles on the re­spec­tive stands.

Ma­haraj ad­vised mo­torists to ob­serve the park­ing signs.

“Since the re-in­tro­duc­tion, the traf­fic con­ges­tion has re­duced dras­ti­cal­ly. I will ad­vise the mo­tor­ing pub­lic to be vig­i­lant and ob­serve the signs. A lot of mo­torists not ob­serv­ing the signs and they just obliv­i­ous to where they are and what the sign says. I will ad­vise them to ob­serve the signs and the reg­u­la­tions,” he said.

In April, Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice head, ACP Suren­dra Sagram­s­ingh, warned dri­vers about park­ing on the taxi stands. A month lat­er, on May 29, wreck­ing re­sumed, which stopped some work­ers from the Ju­di­cia­ry, Par­lia­ment, Hall of Jus­tice, NALIS and Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, from park­ing on the taxi stands.

Min­utes af­ter speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, the City Cor­po­ra­tion’s lone wreck­er was used to re­move a car parked il­le­gal­ly on Fred­er­ick Street.

Carpark at­ten­dant Ag­beko Dou­glas, who has been op­er­at­ing his fa­cil­i­ty for five years, said there has been a 50 per cent uptick in cus­tomers with the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing. And while he said he is ben­e­fit­ing fi­nan­cial­ly, Dou­glas said there is less foot traf­fic, which he at­trib­uted to few­er mo­torists com­ing in­to Port-of-Spain to avoid be­ing towed.

“It is a good thing, I have a shop too, al­so, and when wreck­ing had stopped, the goods ve­hi­cle couldn’t come to the busi­ness. Now it a lit­tle eas­i­er for it to come,” he said.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud said he did not wish to com­ment on the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing. How­ev­er, he pre­vi­ous­ly said the City Cor­po­ra­tion should fo­cus on traf­fic man­age­ment and not col­lect­ing mon­ey.

Last week, Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne said the re­sump­tion of wreck­ing was not about gen­er­at­ing funds.