As the Guyana Police Force continues with efforts to lead by example in its traffic enforcement activities, it has since stripped the tint off of 65 privately owned motorcars of ranks.
This was revealed by Traffic Chief Dion Moore at the Department’s year-end press conference on Friday.
According to Moore, the Force has been zeroing in on misbehaviours by ranks, and among the trend that was noticed is the increased number of tinted vehicles
Traffic Chief Dion Moore
owned by members of the Force. To this end, the Traffic Chief said, the tint campaign has since been extended to Police officers.
“Sometime earlier in the year, we would have started with ourselves… with regards to having tints on their vehicles. We embarked on removing tints from those vehicles, and 65 police privately-owned vehicles that (were) tinted (were stripped),” he stated.
The Traffic Chief went on to disclose that some 23 vehicles belonging to the Police Force but used for patrol exercises were also stripped of tint.
“The Force’s administration has issued a directive for no Police patrol vehicle to be tinted,” he added.
The announcement of the Force clamping down on its own was made back in August. At the time, the Traffic Chief had stated that the Police must set an example to the public.
“If we are to address the issue of the general public, then we must first look at ourselves; and that is exactly what we are doing. The public must not see us doing the same wrong things that we are punishing them for.”
Furthermore, acting Top Cop David Ramnarine had also warned officers that unless they have been granted special exemption for tint on their private vehicles, they would equally be subjected to what the law stipulates.
“There is a law for tint. The law is not for some. The only law I know is when the chief licensing authority grants an exemption, and in a few other cases,” he said.
“Some three weeks ago, a message was circulated for tint to be removed from Police patrol vehicles, but it was disregarded by some. And therefore, to (ensure) the compliance that we want, a combined course of action was taken,” Ramnarine had said.
Last year, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan said Government would be moving to review the existing policy regarding tint on motor vehicles as one of the components of the national crime fighting strategy.
It was announced that tint meters would be used to determine the density of the tint on vehicle windows. To this end, Moore said on Friday that Traffic ranks were being trained to operate the equipment.
As it currently stands, only certain vehicles are permitted to have tints without the expressed permission of the Public Security Minister. These include diplomatic vehicles and those belonging to senior Government and high-ranking military officials.
