Government has lost almost $2.5 million in parking fines in the last three years by allowing more than 49,000 tickets to go unpaid.

There were 117,794 parking tickets issued in the City of Hamilton in 2004, 2005 and 2006 but only 68,091 — or just under 58 percent — were paid. Tickets expire after six months meaning the majority of the $2,485,150 owed from the last three years — based on 49,703 unpaid $50 fines — will never be recouped.

The figures were revealed in an answer from the Ministry of Justice to a parliamentary question put by Deputy Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley.

He said last night that they showed that Government had failed to get a handle on a problem first revealed in January 2004 by The Royal Gazette.

“In the last three years over 40 percent of the tickets aren’t paid,” he said. “Nothing has changed. Clearly a lot of people are understanding and realising that ‘if I get a parking ticket, I just don’t pay it’.

“The situation is not working and we have a huge traffic problem in town. $2.5 million is outstanding to the Government coffers. Is that an efficient way of running any organisation? I don’t think so.”

Three years ago this newspaper uncovered the fact that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of unpaid parking tickets remained outstanding because of a failure on the part of prosecutors to bring offenders to court.

Senior court administrator Tracey Kelly said at the time that no one had been brought before the courts for outstanding parking fines since February 2002 and that some 20 percent of motorists were not paying up.

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a question yesterday about how many people had been brought before the courts for unpaid parking fines during the last three years, nor did it say what it was doing to chase outstanding tickets or the cost of traffic wardens’ salaries in the same period.

The figures it provided in response to Mr. Dunkley show that 37,150 parking tickets were issued in 2004; 41,745 in 2005 and 38,899 in 2006.

Hamilton Mayor Sutherland Madeiros said yesterday that the Corporation of Hamilton was in talks with the Attorney General to try to find a solution.

“What we don’t want to do is just penalise people,” he said. “We want to make sure that people pay for their vouchers in the car parks.

“One of the things we are looking at and contemplating in the short term is clamping cars that are illegally parked. We have spoken to the Police Commissioner and, as long as it’s legal, he supports us. We are waiting for a ruling from our attorneys.”

He said clamping was a last resort but added: “We believe it won’t take many people to be clamped before they start paying their parking vouchers.”

The Corporation charges $1.25 for an hour’s parking in the capital. The mayor said the lost revenue from people not paying for vouchers was a concern. “We are running the city on behalf of taxpayers and people are not paying their parking vouchers.”

He said the Corporation was also considering the need for more car parking with the increase in buildings in Hamilton.