Letter of the Day | Traffic ticket payment nightmare

THE EDITOR, Madam:

For all who don’t know, as of November 26, the Tax Office of Jamaica (TAJ) is unable to collect payments for traffic ticket fines at a tax office or via their online system. The reason being (as seen on their website) that a finalised list of traffic offence codes has not yet been provided to the revenue authority to effect changes to its systems, which would enable them to collect fines, as defined by the recent change to the applicable law.

It means that if you get a traffic ticket after November 26, which I unfortunately got, you have to go to the court nearest to where you got that ticket; as well as only to be paid on the day set for the court date. Not before that!

We have gone back in time, and will now be clogging up our court system to pay a traffic ticket that we all could pay online before November 26. I was issued the ticket unfortunately on the highway, so that means I have to take off work, pay a toll fee, pay for gas, and then drive all the way to Claremont on the day the police put down for me to go to court in January 2022, and pay that $5,000 ticket.

In this time of COVID-19, and with the Government talking about a fourth wave of the pandemic, I am going in a courtroom with vaccinated and unvaccinated persons just to pay a traffic fine.

We can upload a picture and have our Jamaican passport done all online, but we cannot do the same with a traffic ticket with the tax department, until this mess with the Government is sorted out.

Why can’t we upload our traffic ticket which has the amount on it to the tax department website and pay the fine? If you don’t want to pay your ticket and go to court, then that’s your right. But for me, in this time of COVID-19, why should I be putting my health and safety at risk to pay a ticket I have no issue paying; but just wish to pay it via the Internet.

Hoping for a quick solution.

CONCERNED CITIZEN