MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Minister of Transport and Mining Audley Shaw has warned that the corruption at the Island Traffic Authority with the selling of driver’s licence will be “cut out” during his tenure.

“It is an area that people don’t like to touch, but I only have one life to live. We cannot allow elephants to remain in the living room. One of the big elephants in the living room is the selling of driver’s licence,” he told public transport operators and groups at a defensive driving seminar at the Golf View Hotel in Mandeville on Wednesday.

Shaw pledged that he will be pushing for an increase in salaries for motor vehicle examiners as part of the effort to curtail the selling of driver’s licences.

He said the long-standing corruption has resulted in people paying between $30,000 and $40,000 to obtain a driver’s licence.

“Part of that has ended up [where] 20 per cent of our drivers in Jamaica are illiterate — cannot read or write — but dem buy dem driver’s licence and by the way, that is a part of your road accidents and road fatalities out there,” he said.

“Under my watch as minister of transport and mining, the selling of driver’s licences is going to be cut out. People must go do their test [and] get their licence legitimately, so that they can be a part of safe driving on the road,” he added.

Shaw said he intends to accomplish this by increasing the compensation for motor vehicle examiners.

“When I look at the compensation that is paid to examiners [about] $200,000 a month, that can’t continue. The pay to examiners will have to be significantly increased and part of that significant increase in their salaries is the elimination of selling of driver’s licences,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minister Shaw said adjustments will be made to the Transport Authority (Amendment) Act.

He was responding to concerns raised by Opposition spokesperson on transport Mikael Phillips and president of the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODSS) Egeton Newman over what they considered as excessive fine under the Transport Authority (Amendment) Act of up to $500,000 for expletives spewed by operators to inspectors.

“A section of the Bill was seen to be excessive, that is to say threats to transport regulators — offensive language and so on — a maximum fine of $500,000 is in that draft. We have looked at it carefully and we have realised that there was need for some adjustment there, because I think the perception is that that $500,000 would be kind of a room that the judge would have to make a decision,” he explained.

“We have made a decision to make some adjustments to that which will be done and those adjustments will be that the present situation where offensive language now sees a fine of $50,000… we will double that fine. However, threats made to our transport regulators and other people will see a larger fine of up in the region of about $200,000 to $250,000,” he added while insisting that there needs to be discipline on the nation’s roads.

He reiterated that changes are coming under the new Road Traffic Regulations including the revocation of driver’s licences for people with outstanding and excessive traffic tickets.

“[They] have hundreds of tickets and are still on the road driving that is going to change… if you get too many tickets then you are saying that your time on the road is going to be limited, because your licence is going to be taken from you,” he insisted.