The Pakistani government has dug itself into a hole: it owes New York City hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Pakistan Consulate owes an accumulated overdue payment of $560,000 for unpaid traffic violation tickets since 1997. The Pakistan Consulate and Pakistan Mission together received 4,940 tickets during the past eight years, primarily for parking in “No Parking” zones. Three years ago, the overdue amount was $250,000; now they owe in excess of half a million dollars due to penalties and accumulated interest.
New York City offers preferred parking areas to the hundreds of thousands of staff members of the 180 countries’ consulates and missions to the United Nations, and are issued special diplomatic license plates.
Regardless of this special treatment, 10 countries are owing the city more than $20 million for 11,109 unpaid tickets. Interestingly, besides Greece and Brazil, the eight remaining debtor countries are Muslim. Two of the defaulting consulates owe more than $2 million.
In 2002, the State Department reached an agreement with New York City in which the individual staff members who got the tickets would pay them. If a staff member failed to pay at least three tickets within 100 days, the City could cancel the diplomatic license plate of the defaulting diplomat.
Diplomatic staff is bound by the law to park their cars only at designated spots. According to Sam Miller, a spokesman for the New York City’s Treasury Department, the diplomatic parking program is being successfully implemented. He says that 85 percent of the diplomats have paid all their tickets within the stipulated time. “We are making firm plans for the recovery of the past dues,” he said. Miller also said that if the need arises, special laws would be passed through the Congress to recover any remaining past due amounts.
According to the press attaché at the Pakistan Mission, Mansoor Suhail, the dues in question are too old. He said the press increases and decreases the amount owed on its own. He said the State Department and the City have already reached an agreement regarding the overdue amount of the Pakistan Mission and the Consulate. Talking to the Pakistan Post, Suhail pled ignorance regarding the latest press reports concerning the overdue amount and said the Mission has not received any notice from the City to that effect. In fact, according to Suhail, the mission had received no notice from the city in the past three to three-and-a-half years. When asked if he denies the aforementioned dues owed by the Pakistan Mission and the Consulate, he reiterated, “We don’t know about these figures. If the City administration sends them then we will be able to ascertain which tickets are overdue and who got issued the tickets.”
