RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­pose high­er fines on er­rant mo­torists and to in­crease Cus­toms tax­es and levies, in­sist­ing the mea­sures are nec­es­sary to re­store or­der in a coun­try she says has now slipped in­to law­less­ness.

Ad­dress­ing more crit­i­cism over the in­creas­es yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again said the changes are aimed at pro­tect­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who have been un­fair­ly bur­dened by the ac­tions of oth­ers.

“The coun­try has no or­der, it’s be­come a law­less dump, and it’s be­cause of the en­ti­tled at­ti­tudes of some cit­i­zens who be­lieve they can do what­ev­er they want while in­con­ve­nienc­ing oth­ers with­out con­se­quences,” the Prime Min­is­ter said in a What­sApp mes­sage re­sponse to ques­tions on the is­sue yes­ter­day.

She added that “these en­ti­tled cit­i­zens span across all de­mo­graph­ics and sec­tors of so­ci­ety,” and is­sued a clear mes­sage to her de­trac­tors.

“I am run­ning this coun­try to im­prove the lives of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who go out every day and try to live a good and de­cent life. These peo­ple have been tak­en ad­van­tage of for too long.”

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, road safe­ty fines will be dou­bled against the back­drop of mount­ing traf­fic fa­tal­i­ties, with 109 road deaths record­ed so far this year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said de­ci­sive ac­tion was un­avoid­able.

“Any cit­i­zen is free to dri­ve reck­less­ly, smoke gan­ja, drink rum, gam­ble, mis­be­have, mash up the place, play loud mu­sic, and live how­ev­er they want. I have no prob­lem with their per­son­al choic­es once they ac­cept the con­se­quences of their choic­es, but I will run this coun­try to the ben­e­fit of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who want to im­prove their lives and their chil­dren’s lives,” she vowed.

In the face of claims there was no con­sul­ta­tion be­fore the mea­sures were in­tro­duced via le­gal no­tice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “All these mea­sures were present first­ly in the bud­get and sec­ond­ly in the fi­nance bill.”

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to the Op­po­si­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of lead­ing its sup­port­ers “down the wrong path,” and ques­tioned the pri­or­i­ties be­ing ad­vanced.

“They seem to har­bour no great am­bi­tions for their sup­port­ers or cit­i­zens. I was shocked when the first thing their leader spoke of in the bud­get was the price of rum. Is that what she be­lieves is im­por­tant to PNM sup­port­ers and cit­i­zens, in­stead of health­care, ed­u­ca­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, and sus­tain­able jobs?” she ques­tioned.

The Prime Min­is­ter crit­i­cised what she de­scribed as the Op­po­si­tion’s broad­er ap­proach to so­cial and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

“The PNM has sup­port­ed giv­ing gan­ja to young peo­ple in­stead of lap­tops, en­cour­aged rum drink­ing and gam­bling, de­fend­ed Venezue­lan hu­man traf­fick­ers and drug smug­glers, and fought against cit­i­zens de­fend­ing them­selves in their own homes. They be­lieve cit­i­zens want to be grass cut­ters and street sweep­ers in­stead of hav­ing sus­tain­able jobs where they can af­ford a de­cent home and life,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She con­clud­ed by ar­gu­ing that there is a dou­ble stan­dard at play.

“PNM MPs don’t sup­port those neg­a­tive things for their own chil­dren and fam­i­lies, but sup­port it for cit­i­zens,” she lament­ed.

From Jan­u­ary 1, 2026, a wide range of tax­es, du­ties, fees and fines are al­so set to in­crease, af­fect­ing con­sumers, busi­ness­es and im­porters.

Lux­u­ry elec­tric ve­hi­cles with a cost, in­sur­ance and freight val­ue ex­ceed­ing $400,000 will at­tract a 10 per cent cus­toms du­ty, 12.5 per cent VAT and a tiered mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax based on mo­tor size, while a range of fines and penal­ties for traf­fic of­fences and oth­er vi­o­la­tions will al­so in­crease through le­gal no­tices is­sued un­der the new bud­get.

Sev­er­al cus­toms and pro­cess­ing fees will al­so dou­ble, in­clud­ing the Cus­toms De­c­la­ra­tion or Trans­ac­tion User Fee from $40 to $80, the Con­tain­er Pro­cess­ing Fee from $525 to $1,050, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Tyre Tax from $20 to $40, and the im­port fee for wild an­i­mals and birds from $100 to $200.