Sev­er­al traf­fic fines were re­duced un­der a new le­gal or­der pub­lished on De­cem­ber 31, 2025, af­ter penal­ties set just days ear­li­er ex­ceed­ed lim­its pre­scribed un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act. How­ev­er most oth­er fines were in­creased.

Le­gal No­tice No. 496 amends changes made in a pre­vi­ous or­der is­sued on Christ­mas Day, ad­just­ing penal­ties in the Ninth Sched­ule.

While dozens of of­fences now car­ry high­er fines — in­clud­ing in­creas­es from $1,000 to $2,000 and from $1,000 to $1,500 — one cat­e­go­ry was re­duced from $6,000 to $4,500 af­ter al­leged­ly breach­ing the Act’s pro­vi­sion lim­it­ing in­creas­es to no more than 75 per cent.

Op­po­si­tion MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les seized on the re­vi­sion, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to cor­rect what he de­scribed as “il­le­gal­ly in­creased” fines.

In a Face­book post, Gon­za­les said some penal­ties in­tro­duced days ear­li­er had to be scaled back be­cause they went be­yond the statu­to­ry thresh­old set out in the Act.

He ac­cused the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Min­is­ter of Trans­port of try­ing to “sneak in an­oth­er amend­ment” late in the year to ad­just fines that were un­law­ful­ly raised, call­ing the move an at­tempt to cov­er up an il­le­gal act.

Gon­za­les al­so called for the res­ig­na­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and the Min­is­ter of Trans­port, over what he de­scribed as “con­tempt for cit­i­zens.”

Un­der the lat­est or­der, fines for more than 25 of­fences were dou­bled from $1,000 to $2,000, while oth­ers rose to $1,500, $1,125, $2,250 and $3,750.