Mem­bers of the Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion staged a protest out­side the home of Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinananon Mon­day.

In their first protest since last month, a group of about a dozen scrap iron deal­ers ar­rived in North Val­sayn with plac­ards in hand.

“We in­tend for the next month, to go to all the min­is­ters’ prop­er­ties or the house they are liv­ing in,” as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said.

He added, “In­for­ma­tion com­ing to us is that Ro­han Sinanan is the one who lob­bied the Cab­i­net to close down our in­dus­try. So, we come to his doorstep now to ask him to help us be­cause moth­ers have been suf­fer­ing and sis­ters and all types of peo­ple in this in­dus­try are suf­fer­ing be­cause of this in­dus­try shut­down. “

Fer­gu­son said the deal­ers and work­ers can­not ride out the cur­rent ban on ex­port.

“We can­not take six months, it’s al­ready been two months and we are say­ing please open it back up this month. If y’all want to hold the cop­per, but open back the scrap part of the in­dus­try, where all of us could still do some­thing for Christ­mas and our mem­bers could still be able to pay the bills and we could still be able to func­tion as an in­dus­try.”

Fer­gu­son said they sub­mit­ted a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter two weeks ago and noth­ing had been done to as­sist the many on the bread­line.

“We de­cid­ed to hold up for two weeks be­cause we was wait­ing on the Gov­ern­ment re­sponse. Up to to­day, not one re­sponse and as the recog­nised body in the in­dus­try, not been one meet­ing with us so far. So, we say Mr Prime Min­is­ter, I want to say this to you and I want to send you a mes­sage, you see what hap­pened in To­ba­go. You are from To­ba­go and you see what they do. I am say­ing what is go­ing on in Trinidad, a lot of peo­ple don’t like what’s go­ing on in Trinidad and you are the one that could make this change. And I’m ask­ing you to­day to look at poor peo­ple suf­fer­ing be­cause of the de­ci­sion of your Gov­ern­ment,” Fer­gu­son said.

Fer­gu­son not­ed, how­ev­er, that the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed last Fri­day by let­ter say­ing he did not have time to meet with the as­so­ci­a­tion. He said yes­ter­day’s ac­tion was just the start of many he and his mem­bers will take.

—Re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton.