Gail Alexan­der

Scrap met­al deal­ers who are cur­rent­ly li­censed will be able to op­er­ate un­der the new law to reg­u­late the in­dus­try un­til next April—once they con­sent to the en­try of au­tho­rised of­fi­cers to their com­pounds.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour an­nounced this yes­ter­day in Par­lia­ment, in pi­lot­ing the new bill to mod­ernise reg­u­la­tion of the scrap met­al in­dus­try.

The bill will re­place the Old Met­als and Ma­rine Stores Act, which came in­to force in 1904 and is be­ing re­pealed. The new bill re­quired on­ly a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage.

Ar­mour said the new bill elim­i­nates cop­per trad­ing.

“There’s go­ing to be no ca­pa­bil­i­ty to deal in cop­per as part of scrap met­al un­til the Gov­ern­ment re­vis­its this par­tic­u­lar is­sue and that’s not like­ly to hap­pen for at least an­oth­er year while this new law, if passed, brings the reg­u­la­tion of the in­dus­try in­to man­age­able pro­por­tions,” Ar­mour said.

Ar­mour, who de­tailed the ex­tent of the big busi­ness, in­clud­ing ex­ports, which the in­dus­try has be­come, said, “This ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in ex­ports has al­so un­for­tu­nate­ly in­volved a con­cur­rent in­crease in the lar­ce­ny of var­i­ous met­als that sup­port the coun­try’s crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture on a scale which has threat­ened our very na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ty.”

He de­tailed mil­lions in theft of iron and sim­i­lar ma­te­ri­als from state and pri­vate sec­tor lo­ca­tions and en­ti­ties.

“Sig­nif­i­cant al­so in the scourge of il­le­gal­i­ty as­so­ci­at­ed with this in­dus­try, is the pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal scrap yards, mon­ey laun­der­ing, con­ceal­ment of il­le­gal firearms,” he said.

Ar­mour de­tailed stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions on the bill in­clud­ing with the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion—and the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion’s quick ef­fi­cient work on the bill.

List­ing claus­es, Ar­mour said Gov­ern­ment pro­posed to in­tro­duce a new tran­si­tion­al pro­vi­sion, Sec­tion 39, to al­low li­cences un­der the cur­rent Old Met­al and Ma­rine Stores Act to be deemed scrap met­al deal­ers’ li­cences un­der this new bill un­til April 14, 2023, or such lat­er date as de­ter­mined.

“In or­der to ben­e­fit from this pro­vi­sion, how­ev­er, the li­cence hold­er would have to make a de­c­la­ra­tion that he con­sents to the en­try of au­tho­rised of­fi­cers on his scrap met­als site,” he added

“This amend­ment will al­so en­sure that cur­rent li­censed scrap met­al deal­ers will be able to op­er­ate once this new Sec­tion 39 comes in­to force.”

The Trade Min­is­ter will be em­pow­ered to im­pose terms/con­di­tions on these tran­si­tion­al scrap met­al deal­er’s li­cences and to spec­i­fy the scrap met­al sites to which they ap­ply.

Ar­mour added, “The deem­ing of ex­ist­ing li­cences to be scrap met­al deal­er’s li­cences would make ex­ist­ing li­cence hold­ers, scrap met­al deal­ers un­der the act. This is con­sis­tent with the dis­cus­sions we’ve had with stake­hold­ers, to per­mit the in­dus­try to re-open un­der this bill, once passed in­to law, in the short­est pos­si­ble time, even while we build out the fur­ther reg­u­la­to­ry regime, which is a work in progress.

“This way, the Gov­ern­ment is able to bring cer­tain en­force­ment and oth­er pro­vi­sions of this bill when it be­comes the law, which re­late to the reg­u­la­tion of deal­ers, in­to force be­fore full procla­ma­tion of the act.

“For ex­am­ple, au­tho­rised of­fi­cers would be able to be­gin en­ter­ing and in­spect­ing scrap met­al sites, charg­ing scrap met­al deal­ers for of­fences un­der the act, and mon­i­tor­ing the load­ing of con­tain­ers for the ex­port of scrap met­al.”

Un­der the new bill:

• A li­cence is valid for one year but re­new­able on ap­pli­ca­tion.

• Li­cences won’t be is­sued ret­ro­spec­tive­ly, nor in re­la­tion to a dwelling house - or to ap­pli­cants un­der 18 years.

• Ap­pli­cants must con­sent to the en­try of au­tho­rised of­fi­cers on their scrap met­al site to al­low in­spec­tion of the site, records and scrap met­al stored there. Of­fi­cers may en­ter sites with­out a war­rant.

• Deal­ers must keep ma­te­r­i­al re­ceived for 15 days, which will per­mit peo­ple who fear their premis­es have been stripped to go to a scrap met­al site and alert the in­spec­tor.

• Deal­ers/col­lec­tors will buy/re­ceive on­ly dur­ing 7 am to 6 pm. Busi­ness can­not be done with/or em­ploy chil­dren of peo­ple ap­pear­ing to be un­der the in­flu­ence of in­tox­i­cat­ing liquor/drug.