Didn’t do it but have to pay; traffic chits from ‘nowhere’ – Traffic department officials falsifying citations

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 2: Three employees of General Traffic Department were arrested for falsifying official citations by changing the data on computers such that the violations of some companies and individuals were transferred to those who did not have any violations.

Detectives from the department nabbed them after receiving information about their heinous activities. The department had set up a committee to investigate the traffic violations on a daily basis which involved extracting the master lists from the General Department of Information Systems at Ministry of Interior starting from January 2012 until December 2015.

It then became evident that 1,729 violations of 137 individuals and some others of certain car rental companies were transferred to 17 individuals who did not have violations.

The fines of these violations were a total of KD 54,330.

In addition, 1,057 violations of total value KD 38,860 committed by 32 individuals were transferred without forwarding their files to the concerned department.

In related incident, an unidentified Kuwaiti recently visited the Al-Anba daily to complain about the ‘irregularities’ in the General Traffic Department (GTD), reports Al-Anba daily.

He added, his female domestic helper, does not own a driver’s licence and she has never sat behind a steering wheel but surprisingly the GTD has issued two traffic citations against her.

He told the daily, as the maid travels with the family when they go for shopping and is always seated in the back. He says it is surprising the citations are issued against the maid.

He said this is a crystal clear case of manipulation by the GTD and it is not surprising that the citations are transferred to other names at random as a favor to some.

The citizen added he learned about the citations when he went to renew the residence permit of the housemaid.

He said the officer in charge told him the residence permit could not be renewed.

The first citation mentions, driving without licence and the other for driving a vehicle without renewing the car registration and both these citations are ‘indirect’. The citizen said after meeting several senior officials, the filed could not be located and the citations were finally shelved

By Munaif Nayef Al-Seyassah Staff and Agencies