EIGHT tax offices in seven parishes will be opened this Saturday between the hours of 10:00 am and 4:00 pm as Government encourages motorists to make use of its traffic ticket amnesty.

“Take advantage of the traffic ticket amnesty and do even more this Saturday,” said an advertisement in yesterday’s edition of the Jamaica Observer. “All services except audit and compliance will be available at the select (tax) offices,” it added.

Tax offices scheduled to be opened this Saturday are Portmore and Spanish Town in St Catherine; Constant Spring, St Andrew; May Pen, Clarendon; Mandeville, Manchester; St Ann’s Bay, St Ann; Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland and Montego Bay, St James.

The delinquent motorists were advised that they must have the outstanding tickets or numbers.

On Wednesday, the security ministry, in a release, said between August 2 and August 4, just more than 7,000 motorists had paid more than $15 million in fees from outstanding tickets at tax offices islandwide.

The traffic ticket amnesty, which ends on October 31, 2017, provides motorists with the option of paying off their outstanding traffic tickets either online, using the Tax Administration of Jamaica’s website or at any of the island’s tax offices, which have been outfitted with additional cashiers and security personnel.

During the 91-day traffic ticket amnesty period, motorists will have telephone access to a specially established call centre where agents can provide clarification on all amnesty-related matters such as the number of tickets a motorist has outstanding and how he/she can retrieve misplaced tickets.

A ministry release said that since the call centre became active on the morning of August 2, more than 5,000 calls have been received with queries on the payment process, the matter of outstanding tickets attracting demerit points and how to deal with tickets that have warrants attached.

The amnesty will allow motorists to pay their outstanding traffic tickets without attracting demerit points. However, tickets that are paid during the amnesty will not be removed from the motorist’s record. Rather, they will remain on the system, but reflect a paid status.

“Motorists need to understand that their record will not automatically be cleared of their traffic offences. Though the demerit points attached to the tickets will be cleared — or rather — not be assigned, the motorist’s record will still reflect that they committed a traffic offence, which they have paid,” the ministry’s release said.

It added that motorists with amounts they are unable to clear at once will have the option of making several payments throughout the amnesty period until the outstanding amounts have been cleared.

“For motorists who have been issued with warrants for outstanding tickets, special arrangements would be made to clear those, as once the ticket has been paid during the amnesty period, arrangements will be made for the warrant to be disposed of at court,” said the release.

The amnesty does not apply to ticket-related summons that are currently before the court, or are active.