Traf­fic lights across the coun­try have not been work­ing in the last few days due to late pay­ments to the con­trac­tors who ser­vice these lights.

This was con­firmed by the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed by mem­bers of the pub­lic that traf­fic lights at ma­jor in­ter­sec­tions in South, North and East Trinidad were af­fect­ed, leav­ing many mo­torists to nav­i­gate these dan­ger­ous in­ter­sec­tions.

Guardian Me­dia was told that last week­end lights at Gulf City in­ter­sec­tion, Mor­vant Junc­tion, Sun­set Cove in­ter­sec­tion in La Ro­maine all have been mal­func­tion­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to some mo­torists, Traf­fic War­dens were on­ly called in at the Gulf City in­ter­sec­tion on Wednes­day to help en­sure there is a smooth, safe flow of traf­fic dur­ing the day. But mo­torists are con­cerned about what will hap­pen dur­ing the night.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that the Mau­si­ca In­ter­sec­tion traf­fic lights were al­so not func­tion­ing as well as lights along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route.

Ven­dor Den­nis Brown said, “Since Sat­ur­day lunchtime this traf­fic light has not been work­ing. It had an ac­ci­dent here Mon­day af­ter­noon. Right now it af­fect­ed me bad­ly, I am a sin­gle par­ent and it is dan­ger­ous to sell when the lights are not work­ing."

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter, Ro­han Sinanan con­firmed that the lights were not work­ing, and the rea­son was due to the non-pay­ment of mon­ey owed to the con­trac­tors.

“Well I mean, we do have chal­lenges in terms of cash flow you would ac­cept as a gov­ern­ment there are cer­tain cash­flow is­sues and so I would not be sur­prised if they are out­stand­ing pay­ment for the con­trac­tors”, the Min­is­ter said.

He said that he has al­so got­ten word from the Fi­nance Min­istry that re­leas­es will be giv­en to his min­istry soon so that the pay­ments can be made and the lights back to work­ing prop­er­ly.