Magistracy rakes in millions in traffic tickets, unclaimed bail

Magisterial districts across Guyana continue to rake in millions of dollars in revenue on an annual basis from the payments of fines and bail.

The latest report on these figures, released earlier in April but examining the year 2018, shows that the Georgetown Magisterial District collected a total of $37.5M and $5.3M as revenue from the payment of fines and unclaimed or escheated bail in 2018, respectively.

With a specific emphasis on traffic ticket payments, some 8, 493 tickets were filed in Georgetown of which 1, 490 were paid; that amounted to $10.1 million in 2018.

The data shows that 6, 871 of the tickets had to be sent to court and 5, 364 were disposed of.

This trend repeated itself in other magisterial districts in 2018 but there were no figures available publicly for the period 2019 -2021 as those reports are yet to be prepared and filed in the National Assembly.

In the West Berbice Magisterial District, a total of $2.6 million in revenue from traffic tickets were collected while $130,000 was collected in escheated bail.

West Demerara Magisterial District, according to the report, raked in $1 million in escheated bail and $2.5 million in traffic tickets. East Demerara Magisterial District accounted for $2.8 million in unclaimed bail and $3 million in traffic tickets.

Some districts like Rupununi raked in way less in unclaimed bail and traffic tickets as the overall statistics in that area were significantly lower.