Dear Editor,
The police force needs to devise a system that would prevent residents from Region 2 having to travel all the way to its finance office in the city to get bail refunds for monies lodged at stations in the district.
Ever so often when it is not possible to reach there, the victims suffer the loss of their money through no fault of their own in this hard guava season.
For minor offences the usual minimum bail stands at ten thousand dollars with the expenses to get to the office being no less than this amount. As a consequence it hardly makes sense to go for it. From my understanding bail monies lodged at the four stations in the district, namely, Aurora, Suddie, Anna Regina and Charity are being remitted to the finance office in the city for security reasons. In some instances bail refunds were being given at the respective stations but when this cannot be done there, then costly travel to the city to collect a cheque usually of only $10,000, has to be undertaken.
There are several ways by which this problem can be solved with one suggestion being to open a bail reserve fund at any of the three commercial banks in the Region, with the authenticated signature of two authorized ranks on the cheques allowing the bailee to receive the refund. Another suggestion is for the finance officer in ‘G’ Division based at headquarters in Anna Regina to be given authorization to collect payment cheques from the city in the bailees’ names for the refund and for them to uplift these at his office.
Court bail is lodged at the Suddie Magistrate’s office and at the conclusion of cases it is refunded expeditiously right there in the form of a cheque, with no problem whatsoever. It should not be difficult for the police to learn how it is being done at this office.
Out of frustration the victims of police bail refunds surrender their receipts somewhere along the line without getting their money, and this is very unfair to them and unacceptable as well.
Yours faithfully,
Baliram Persaud
