Police asked to publish details of spot fines

All offences and their fines under the spot fines initiative to be introduced next month should be published, the Director of Magis Literacy Age Foundation, Mr Haroun Tetteh-Mensah, has appealed to the police administration.

That, he said, was to avoid the abuse of the system.

Interacting with journalists at Kasoa yesterday, Mr Tetteh-Mensah, who described the initiative as laudable, said the requisite offences and the

fines needed to be published so that the motoring public would be aware.

“The idea is good and the innovation is in order,” he said, adding that “in order not to confuse the public everything must come out clearly”.

The Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (MTTU) of the Ghana Police Service has said it will from next month introduce spot fines for minor road offences.

Failure to renew driving licence, driving on the shoulders of the road, failure to use seat belt, the use of communication device, among similar offences, will fall under the spot fine system.

The use of the spot fine system is intended to quicken the administration of justice for minor traffic offenders and also help increase compliance with road traffic regulations and reduce indiscipline acts by drivers.

Countries such as Germany, Portugal, France, Austria, United Kingdom, The Gambia and Malawi have implemented the system.

Mr Tetteh-Mensah said the system was one of the best to be introduced by the police to deal with road traffic offences.

However, he said, the public needed to be enlightened so that no one exploited the system.

The spot fine is regulated by Legislative Instrument 2180, 2012.

Regulation 157 of LI 2180 states that, "a person who commits a road traffic offence specified in the Seventh Schedule is liable to pay a spot fine. Where a person commits a road traffic offence which attracts a spot fine, a police officer in whose presence the offence is committed shall issue that person with a spot fine notice and record the offence in the counterpart driver’s licence (booklet for recording road violations) of that person.

Story: Emmanuel Bonney