Amnesty rush
TRAFFIC Headquarters at the Elletson Road Police Station in Kingston opens today at 9:00 am to accommodate motorists desperate to avoid prosecution when the six-month Traffic Ticket Amnesty ends on Monday morning.
Crowds of boisterous, impatient motorists flocked the police station as well to as the Cross Roads branch of the Jamaica Tax Administration from as early as 4:00 am yesterday and had stood in long lines for much of the day trying to beat the end of the amnesty.
When the Jamaica Observer visited the Elletson Road Police Station, Kemar Brown, who said he was an “amnesty worker” was addressing the unruly crowd that had gathered, consisting of motorists needing to check if they had outstanding tickets.
“We have been doing this for the past six months,” he said loudly. “We cannot facilitate in three days, six month’s work. We presently have over 800 licences being checked by 12 persons, plus making phone calls, etc.”
He explained, too, that the traffic ticket amnesty website was up and running.
“You can find a $30 Internet cafe or Flow Internet and check it and then print it off. You can take that printout to the tax office and they will do the rest.” Keron Brown, a bus driver, and Jeffrey “Watermouth’ Clarke, a bus owner, had outstanding tickets amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Brown displayed reams of paper with ticket infractions and fines tallying $84,500. Brown admitted guilt on all the offenses from as far back as 2005 going up to 2010.
“If they (government) say we owe it, we owe it,” the driver who plies the Golden Spring to downtown Kingston route said. “The thing is even if you did go court to pay it they don’t have any system there to prove that you actually paid it. A just so it go.
“I plan to pay it by Monday, yes, but to tell the truth, I don’t know where the money coming from,” he said. “I have to go try and borrow the money, but it would be good if all some loan agency would pass through and lend us money because mi sure mi woulda pay them back,” he said. “Mi have two daughter and mi cyah go prison lef them,” he said.
Clarke, the owner of five Toyota Coaster buses, who said, in total, his drivers owed over $700,000 worth of traffic tickets, had a different attitude.
‘What we need is an extension,” he said. “There is no way I can find this amount of money by then. Give us six months more to clear it up and we could work with that. There is no way possible that we can sort it out by Monday. So I would like to ask the transport minister to extend it by another six months.”
“The driver dem have to go run weh,” Clarke declared, but Brown said come Wednesday, the situation could be even more severe.
“We have decided that Wednesday you will see everybody walking, ’cause no bus will be on the road,” the bus driver said. “We just hope they have enough cell and enough food to feed everybody that they plan to lock up.”
The Cross Roads Tax Administration branch was the only one in Kingston that was open, as some motorists found out after trekking to the Constant Spring and downtown Kingston branches.
The complaints varied from having to wait hours for the office to open to the public at 11:00 am despite reports that it would have been open three hours earlier, to the belief that more branches should have been opened in the Corporate Area, or that too few clerks had been called in to deal with the large influx of delinquents.
“Why they choose to open the smallest office?” one woman queried as she perched on her stool in a line that stretched about 100 metres around the corner of the tax office all the way to opposite end of the Regal Plaza where it is located.
“Government don’t have no insight. They must did expect nuff people would turn out. Why they never use Constant Spring?”
Others felt that tents should have been erected outside and those with small numbers of outstanding tickets accommodated at one section, while those with larger numbers in another.
“What you find too is that the people with a whole heap of tickets holding up the line, so they should have different sections,” a man complained.
“I was coming from a party and I decided to stop at 4:00 this morning,” another woman who had just managed to get inside the office revealed. “By 7 o’clock the line reach to the back door (about 20 metres away).”
Minutes after 12 noon, persons who had said they had been there since 7:00 am were still lined up outside.
Some were bitter that they were being forced to pay ticket fines a second time since they had lost their receipts years ago and had no proof to back up their claims.
“I received two tickets, one in 2005 for $5,000 and the other in 2006 for $500,” a man who said he was a doctor explained. “The tickets, I have I paid them already, but I can’t find the receipts. It seems you have to go keep these tax receipt for life because they can call on you at anytime to say you are owing. Who would have their receipts from 2005 until now?” he asked. “The government not serious at all.”
He explained that since he had paid the fines years ago, he had no reason to check the system. However, two days ago his son decided to go on the Ministry of National Security’s website and that’s when he discovered he was tagged among the delinquents.
“I have been trying for two days now to pay and the tax offices were like this,” he said. “But I just decided to spend the day here because I am not going to waste another day.”
Other complaints were that persons were able to pay outstanding tickets for as many persons as possible as long as they were in possession of their Taxpayer Registration Numbers.
Another man, who gave his name as Clint, said up to two days ago when he checked the website he saw no outstanding tickets to his name, but decided to do so again because of the numerous complaints about the inaccuracy of the system. It was only then that he discovered he had outstanding tickets amounting to $22,300; most of which he said he recalled paying before.
But while some complained, others found a lighter side to events.
“Officer!” one woman said to a passing policeman. “You know if anybody up front a sell skip? Mi willing fi pay up to five grand to anybody close to the door,” she said as persons burst out laughing. “A Jamaica this, mi know somebody up there must a sell skip.”
After pleasantly answering that he will check, the officer walked away.
“Don’t be surprise if him nuh come back and tell you seh him can do a ‘ting’ for you,” a man chirped, prolonging the laughter.
Others settled in with a book as vendors did brisk business.
“Water, fruit juice, bag juice, banana chips!” Devon, one of a number of venders patrolling the line shouted, displaying a fistful of hundred dollar bills.
“Business not bad at all!” he told the Sunday Observer. “I wouldn’t mind if they do this every week because mi making more money up here so than I would usually make down in the town,” he said smiling. “Mi glad for it bad!”
A uniformed police sergeant, who chose anonymity for this story, said it is a strong possibility that the amnesty will be extended come Monday.
“You think government going end it? They not gong to end it,” he told the Observer, as an aside. “They have two billion dollars in revenue that they want to collect, and they don’t reach the amount they want yet. So you think they not going to extend it? They only telling people ’bout lock-up to frighten them. But they going try and collect as much as possible. If they lock up people how you think the money going pay? They going to extend it,” he said convincingly.