TRAFFIC Chief, Superintendent Hugh Dehnert, has called on all Guyanese who utilise public transportation not to confront minibus operators and taxi drivers in instances when traffic laws are blatantly being breached, but to report all such incidents to the police for them to take action.

Dehnert said law enforcement personnel would then infiltrate the vehicles of offending operators with a view to taking appropriate remedial action. He deemed it impractical for the police to keep track on every vehicle operating on the roads across the country. “We cannot keep a tab on every vehicle,” Dehnert said, even as he appealed to citizens to report cases of loud music in public transportation. “They are the ones facing the discomfort, and they should be the ones reporting it. If they don’t report it, then obviously the situation would spiral out of control,” he said.
Loud music and its accompanying lewd behaviour have infiltrated public transportation to the point where travellers assist operators to avoid police detection, Dehnert opined. “They know that it is wrong, that’s why they would tell the drivers to use another route, ‘because a police deh round de corner or up de road’; or they would tell drivers and operators to turn down the music because a police is probably in close proximity,” Dehnert said.
The Kaieteur News editorial of May 3 called the public transportation system a “Kafkaesque world, marked by a nightmarishly senseless, disorienting, often menacing quality controlled by the bus conductors and their drivers.”
The editorial also said the public seemingly supports and accepts the system.
Dehnert said the Guyana Police Force is trying its best to enforce the law, even in face of being slapped with scandals of corruption by the public. He said no matter how appalling the reality of incidents of police corruption, the GPF is not surprised when charges are brought against some of its staffers, because, in those incidents, people would shed light on errors in the GPF. “We would hear allegations about police being involved in bribery with minibus conductors and drivers; cases where operators are found carrying overload or playing loud music,” he said, adding that receipt of small wages is usually the cry of most police when they are caught in bribery and corruption cases.
He advised members of the Force who are inclined to be corrupt to resign. “If the pay is low leave…they have a duty to carry out, and if they don’t do it, then they tarnish the image of the Force,” Dehnert reiterated. He urged members of the GPF to desist from engaging in corrupt practices, and to enforce the law instead of breaking it. He said the Force has a “Zero,’ tolerance policy for members who are embroiled in corruption.
Despite their duty to enforce legislation, Dehnert said, the police need backing from politicians, who seem to be indifferent to this police plight; and the police need the court to collaborate with them to fight against outlaws. “We can only enforce the law. That’s why we need the court and the politicians to help us,” Dehnert said.
He added that the Force has being carrying an ongoing education drive seeking to sensitise the public about the dangers of loud music and overloading in minibuses, and he pleaded with the public to report and not to confront errant vehicle operators in the above regard.
He also said the police force was doing its best to clamp down on minibus operators whose vehicles are found with music instruments and/or even playing music. He said that, on a daily basis, the Force is confiscating buses and revoking licences belonging to drivers.
Music has been outlawed from all public transportation. It is stated that “a driver of a motor bus [minibus] or hire car shall not play or allow anyone to play any music in the motor bus [minibus] or hire car whilst that motor bus [minibus] or hire car is plying its route or parked in a public place.
A driver of a motor bus [minibus] or hire car who contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence which carries both monetary and custodial penalties. In addition, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated last year that the legislation is not restricted to the playing of loud, continuous and repetitive music which disturbs occupants of a minibus or impairs the driver’s ability to use the road cautiously. Rather, the section clearly criminalises the playing of any music in a motor bus while it is plying its route or parked in a public place. Therefore, there should not be present in any minibus any electronic equipment (including television sets, radios, tape-decks, compact disc (CD) players, digital video disc (DVD) players, amplifiers, equalisers, speakers) which would facilitate the playing of music.
When the bill was tabled by Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, he had said that loud music affects the health of those who utilise those vehicles, and is a major cause of road accidents across the country.