Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er Clive Clarke has de­nied claims that li­cens­ing of­fi­cers locked farm­ers in­side the North­ern Whole­sale Mar­ket in Ma­coya ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing an ex­er­cise, say­ing the op­er­a­tion was led by po­lice and that his of­fi­cers on­ly pro­vid­ed sup­port.

A short video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia shows a tense ex­change be­fore sun­rise, with sev­er­al men ar­gu­ing as po­lice of­fi­cers wear­ing marked vests stand near­by.

In the video, a man is heard say­ing: “Li­cens­ing of­fi­cers in the mar­ket. They lock down the gate. They doh want no­body leave. They trap we.”

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the mar­ket, the in­ci­dent was con­firmed to have oc­curred around 4.58 am, when work­ers called their su­per­vi­sors to alert them. The gate had been closed, pre­vent­ing any­one from leav­ing or en­ter­ing the com­pound.

Those in­volved in the in­ci­dent re­port­ed­ly told man­age­ment that while they felt the po­lice’s ac­tion in clos­ing the gates was ex­ces­sive, they be­lieved of­fi­cers had the au­thor­i­ty un­der the state of emer­gency and there­fore com­plied with or­ders.

Clarke told Guardian Me­dia that al­though li­cens­ing of­fi­cers were present, the ex­er­cise was pri­mar­i­ly a po­lice op­er­a­tion.

“You may have seen one li­cens­ing of­fi­cer in uni­form right there,” Clark said, “be­cause po­lice would have reached out to the li­cens­ing di­vi­sion to work along­side them.

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice co­or­di­nat­ed the plans and lo­gis­tics. The li­cens­ing of­fice is sim­ply there to pro­vide sup­port and to utilise the au­thor­i­ties we have un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act if called up­on.”

Clarke stressed that the op­er­a­tion was not equiv­a­lent to a road­block, where li­cens­ing of­fi­cers would typ­i­cal­ly check li­cences or ve­hi­cle de­fects.

“That was not the na­ture of this op­er­a­tion. That’s all I can say rel­e­vant to this,” he added.

Wit­ness­es at the scene said they were in­formed the ex­er­cise was be­ing led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Natasha George, al­though it re­mains un­clear whether she was phys­i­cal­ly present.

CNC3 News has reached out to Namde­v­co and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for com­ment and is await­ing a re­sponse.

The Li­cens­ing Di­vi­sion has faced in­creased pub­lic scruti­ny in re­cent weeks fol­low­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of most­ly dou­bled road traf­fic fines.

Da­ta from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice show that dur­ing the first week of the in­creased fines, of­fi­cers is­sued 1,758 traf­fic tick­ets. For the same pe­ri­od in 2025, 1,682 tick­ets were is­sued, while 1,688 were is­sued in 2024.