Namibia Transport and Taxi Union president, Werner Januarie said his union welcomes the pardoning of traffic offenders by the City of Windhoek (CoW) councillors, as a good gesture and a humanitarian move. Januarie said this in an interview with NAMPA while reacting to the traffic amnesty announcement made by Windhoek Mayor Job Amupanda. During his annual mayoral address on Monday, Amupanda announced that the City councillors and management have agreed to give traffic offenders who have been issued with traffic fines and warrants of arrests on or before 2 December 2020 a second chance. He said the offenders will be given a chance to do six hours community service in exchange for the cancellation of their traffic fines and warrants of arrests. But they first have to qualify for certain conditions the City will implement. The move was also necessitated to reduce the number of inmates in police holding cells in order to adhere to social distancing and curb the further spread of COVID-19. Januarie said the move will be a huge relief to Windhoek motorists, especially taxi drivers who are getting traffic fines almost on a daily basis as they spend most of their time on roads and their salaries are too low to afford to pay traffic tickets. “Most of the time, when the court gives a person community service, the hours are normally high, which can even go up to 100 hours. The City is giving only six hours which is a huge relief, it is lenient and demonstrates good leadership in the current councillors,” said Januarie. He, however, cautioned Amupanda and his fellow councillors not to apply laws that are out of their jurisdiction because he will take them to court. Januarie was referring to the announcement by Amupanda that repeat traffic offenders will risk the cancellation of their driving licenses or transport permits. “A traffic offence process and system will be introduced, particularly with regards to taxi drivers, which may result in the cancellation of licence operations in Windhoek,” said Amupanda. Said Januarie: “That is a no-go zone for them, they should not play on dangerous ground because I will fight it in courts, I know (City Police) Chief Abraham Kanime tried it before but he was unsuccessful. It does not matter whether the person committed the offence 100 times, even the Labour Act does not allow that.” -NAMPA