By SulaymanWaan
Top government officials including State Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, and Directors have been accused of using their position to disrespect the traffic law without giving any respect to the traffic police officers on the road, The Voice has been told.
A close source who spoke to The Voice on anonymity, said government officials are fond of packing wrongly in the roadsides and “anytime traffic officers attempt to pack/arrest such government official cars, the occupancies will refuse and say they are Directors, Ministers or Permanent Secretaries.”
“They (government officials) are definitely abusing their and using it on us (traffic police) despite knowing that traffic police are assigned on duty to do their work just like they too are working in their various offices,” the source added.
According to our source “whenever any traffic police officers apprehend a top government official and want to drag him or her to court for violating the traffic regulation, the person will call the senior police officers such as the Inspector General of Police or other commissioners to ask for their assistance.”
“This is not fair because all Gambians are equal before the law,” the source said bitterly and urged other senior police officers to desist from interfering or being accessory to government senior officials to violate the law.
Speaking further, the source said there is need for every check point to have mandatory fine, “This mandatory fine will prevent senior police officers from withdrawing case of senior government officials who deliberately violate the traffic regulations.”
The mandatory fines, the source added that it will serve as revenue generation for the state because if a driver is given this document the money he or she has to pay will go directly to the national coffers.
“But if any traffic officers want to take a driver to court without this document. The senior police officers will interfere and free the person offender before the case will reach the court as senior police officers will the person is a friend and relative or boss,” the source revealed.
Upon this revelation from the source, The Voice had contacted the Gambia Police Forces public Relation Officer for confirmation. But the police spokesperson expressed that “I don’t have information about that but if you have a case of that nature we can find out because from this abstract it is difficult to talk about.”