HOME Affairs Minister Clement Rohee has said the Guyana Police Force Traffic Department has launched a rigid campaign to remove illegal tints from all vehicles, including those of members of the Guyana Police Force (GPF). The only vehicles that would be allowed to retain their tints are those imported with the manufacturer’s tint integrated into their windows, because those tints cannot be removed.Rohee said many such vehicles are in Guyana, and the government has decided to issue tint waivers to facilitate such vehicles operating on the roads.

The minister explained that in the current system that obtains, vehicle owners go to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) to get the density of those tints read, in order to determine the percentage of tint. This information is then communicated to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), from whom a letter is issued to the Police Traffic Department for endorsement.

Rohee said it has been found that a lot of people are endorsing the Home Affairs Ministry’s tint letter at the Police Traffic Department before adding another layer of tint to their vehicle windows. In other words, they are making their tints darker and seeking to use the MoHA permit to hide that fact.
Rohee urged owners of vehicles with tinted windows not to tamper with the MoHA permit and apply to their vehicles darker tints than those for which they had been authorised, because once their actions has been discovered, the tint on their vehicles would be removed by the police; and he said members of the GPF are not exempted in this regard.

Rohee pointed out that the police anti-tint campaign has resulted in the MoHA receiving a flood of applications for tint waivers, and he said this development means a lot of people are driving around with tinted vehicles.

It was noted that some private vehicles owned by police personnel are so heavily tinted that even the windscreens are tinted, making it difficult for persons to identify who is driving them.
By Michel Outridge