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Bigger fines in the making for damage to public property

Jul 10, 2009 News

Cabinet is concerned with the relative impunity with which public and private property are damaged and destroyed during vehicular accidents. To this end, the administration is now moving to amend the damage to property Act, which would increase fines and penalties for those who are involved in such acts.
This is according to Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, during his post-Cabinet media briefing yesterday at the Office of the President.
He explained that there was existing legislation for damage to property, but the investment in infrastructure when the original Act was put in place is nothing compared with what is happening today.
“The fact is there is much more to damage now and the definition of public property then and now differs significantly. So the Act had to be amended,” Dr. Luncheon said.
Dr. Luncheon does not believe that any legislation that prescribes penalties, especially fines that were established 20 30 years ago are of any relevance where today is concerned.
“A major part of the interventions here are to make fines and penalties more appropriate,” he said.
“If you damage a bridge, a telephone or electricity posts, and very often cars drive into trenches and damage pipes and cause a lot of discomfort to citizens and incur expenses for the utilities. All of this is captured in the law, as it is a necessity.”
Although some persons who crashed into traffic lights were told that they will have to pay for the damages, they would still escape the modern law.
However, according to Dr. Luncheon, those persons would still be captured with the parent act.
“We’re not happy however, since it does not cover all of the eventualities. They may escape if they damage a traffic light or a major water main… The new elements of infrastructure is captured in the new legislation… persons will be penalized for an offence but the administration will recover the cost of the repairs for those facilities,” Dr. Luncheon said. (Fareeza Haniff).

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