AG assures no cost for first Trident ID

Attorney General Dale Marshall has assured Barbadians that they will not have to pay for the first issue of the Trident identification cards.
“Let me make it clear to the Barbadian public: The Government of Barbados will not in any circumstances be charging any person who is entitled to receive an ID card a single cent for the first issue of that card,” he said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
“This stance runs throughout the Barbados Identity Management Act which sets out in clear terms in Section 10 that the first issue of an ID card is free of charge. Replacement cards are dealt with by Section 13 of the Act which provides that where the new ID card is to be replaced, that there is a $60 fee.”
His statement came a week after Chief Electoral Officer Angela Taylor told Barbados TODAY that residents will have to start paying for the new digital IDs after June 30 when the old ID cards will expire.
“Right now the card is free, but if you come after the validity period, then you will have to pay for the card,” Taylor had said.
But Marshall noted that while Section 34 (8) of the Act provides that a person who applies for an ID card outside the transitional period shall pay a replacement fee, “this has been dealt with quite simply by the Government extending the transitional period”.
“This Act came into force on March 3rd, 2021, so the one-year period expired on May 2nd, 2022. We have since then issued several extensions of the transitional period and are about to extend the period yet again.
“So we are currently one year and three months past the first anniversary of the commencement of the Act, at which time persons were expecting to be made to pay for ID cards, and not a single Barbadian has been charged for an ID card,” the Government’s chief legal advisor asserted.
Noting that there has been a review of Section 34(8) because it is in conflict with the intention of the Act, the Attorney General said Government had “applied common sense to long ago decide that the spirit of the Act will be followed, and that no person will be charged for their first issue of the new ID card”.
“To be entirely clear, as of today’s date, of the 264 818 registered voters, 202 140 persons have received their new Trident ID Card and not one person has had to pay for it,” he reiterated.
Meanwhile, the Attorney General took president of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) Dr Ronnie Yearwood to task for conflating “the holding of an ID card with the right to vote”.
Marshall argued that is a “clear” indication that the DLP leader paid little attention to the law relating to elections in his “single foray” into elective politics.
“He has repeated the folly when he sought to suggest that we are, in effect, making Barbadians pay for the right to vote; a tax, he called it,” he said as he challenged Yearwood to consider how many thousands of Barbadians walked into voting booths in elections and voted using passports or drivers’ licences.
Stressing that proof of identity is what is required to vote, Marshall said that was not limited to the production of a Barbados ID card.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb