Drivers were frustrated again yesterday as they headed into Port of Spain in slow lines of traffic.

It was not the usual rush-hour traffic associated with the first day of the work week.

The traffic jam was created by the painting of road signs as works continued in preparation for the upcoming Fifth Summit of the Americas.

’I’m going through this problem whole morning. It’s an inconvenience to me and the passenger. This man going to work and he real late,’ taxi-driver Johnny Fakira told the Express as he drove outside the Express Building on Independence Square, Port of Spain.

From about 9 a.m. yesterday, workers from the Ministry of Works and Transport started repainting the signs on the westbound side of Independence Square from the vicinity of William Scott to the TSTT building in the west.

Using orange cones, the workers created one lane in order to prevent vehicles from driving over the fresh white paint.

’We are forced to do this during the day because the Ministry of Works is not paying overtime. We have no choice but to paint the road during the days,’ one of the workers told the Express.

Those who decided to deter from driving through Independence Square also got caught in thick traffic along the Eastern Main Road and Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.

At the San Juan taxi stand passengers were standing in a line along the sidewalk, from the bar at the corner to New City Mall on lower Charlotte Street.

Santa Cruz resident Zoy Roach who was waiting on a taxi around 11.30 a.m.

He told the Express: ’Normally, taxis are on the stand at this time; I can’t understand what is causing this.’

When contacted, Port of Spain Mayor Murchison Brown advised the Express to speak with the Ministry of Works’ Traffic Division, adding: ’I don’t think it should be done through the high-traffic period. But I don’t know what the reason is for it being done at that time.’

No one was available at the Traffic Division for comment yesterday.