Govt exploring avenues for online traffic ticket payment system – AG Nandlall

– says GPF will soon issue electronic traffic tickets

Work is currently ongoing to merge the Judiciary’s digital payment platform with the e-ticketing system for traffic offences as the Government seeks to implement a more convenient way for errant motorists to pay their fines, thus eliminating the need for them to visit a courthouse.
This disclosure was made on Wednesday by Attorney General Anil Nandlall, SC, as he delivered the feature address at the opening of the new $294M Vigilance Magistrates’ Courts on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) and the launch of the Judiciary’s e-payment system for maintenance.
Beginning in September, persons who have been ordered by the court to pay child and/or spousal support will be able to do so via GTT’s Mobile Money Guyana (MMG), a user-friendly and secure payment app available on both Google Play Store and Apple Store.

On this note, Nandlall said the Government is figuring out how to combine the e-ticketing system with the Magistrates’ Courts’ digital payment platform.
“The Commissioner of Police and the Ministry of Legal Affairs with the technology people, are working together in not only designing the law but crafting a system which we will have to engage the Judiciary. Once we get our concept and design clear, whereby we will be issuing traffic tickets electronically using cameras that are installed across the country. The errant drivers and/or owners of the vehicles will be required to pay those tickets at Magistrates’ Courts offices throughout the country where manually, those tickets are being paid now.”
He explained that the recently passed modern-era Electronic Communication and Transaction Act lays the statutory and legitimate basis and framework for all digital transactions to take place and become formally recognised.
This Act, he noted, “Allows for every transaction and every form of payment that is being done manually to be done electronically and the law recognises it as valid and as enforced had it been done non-digitally.
“Everything that we are doing manually now we have the legal capabilities to do them electronically and digitally. All we now have to do is build the requisite infrastructure and platform to bring those transactions to fruition.”
Since last year, the e-ticketing system has been in use on the Mandela to Eccles Highway. This method allows mounted cameras to detect any violations that drivers have committed, such as speeding or operating a vehicle without a seatbelt.
The new approach replaces the manual ticketing method utilising paper tickets and blank paper, and it records the offending motorist through the application. It is anticipated that this will promote more road discipline, encourage drivers to obey traffic laws, and reduce the frequency of accidents caused by reckless driving.
Nandlall had previously said that the relevant laws will have to be amended to allow for the usage of the e-ticketing system in the country as the Government seeks to make roadways safer.
“Many other countries in the Caribbean have gone in this direction and we are moving swiftly there. We are not doing this because we want to punish people. We are doing this to protect lives, to make the roads safer for all of us and for our future generations,” he had said.
In response to the alarmingly high rate of fatal accidents, amendments to the Road Traffic Act were passed which created a new offence, motor manslaughter; and introduced harsher penalties for offences such as driving under the influence and dangerous driving.
But Nandlall is adamant that cultural change is required for the system to work. He had noted, “A large part of it has to do with the users of the road. The mentality must change … It requires an attitudinal change and that must come from the people, the users of the road.”