TSTT re­port­ed on Sun­day that cop­per and ca­ble thieves had cut and stolen fi­bre op­tic and cop­per ca­bles, with over $1 mil­lion in dam­age to the com­pa­ny’s un­der­ground in­fra­struc­ture, dis­rupt­ing the com­pa­ny’s mo­bile, in­ter­net, fixed line and ca­ble ser­vice to thou­sands of cus­tomers across the coun­try.

Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob stat­ed, via a voice mes­sage sent out by TSTT, that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice viewed the oc­cur­rence “as a se­ri­ous in­fringe­ment on the com­mu­ni­ca­tion ap­pa­ra­tus of this coun­try.”

The fact is that the ca­ble and cop­per thieves have been on a ram­page. The Prime Min­is­ter him­self recog­nised the sever­i­ty of the prob­lem fac­ing the coun­try when he told the me­dia on Ju­ly 6: “As a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, I have asked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to con­sid­er whether we should not from here on in, and for some sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od of time, pre­vent the mar­ket­ing of used met­als in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

But al­most a month lat­er, the coun­try is yet to hear whether the AG has made any in­roads in the ef­fort to stop these thieves from strik­ing at the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­lves struck the right note when he de­scribed what was hap­pen­ing as “mad­ness.” These thieves have struck WASA, TSTT and Petrotrin and have even stolen man­holes in­stalled by the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

The fact that they con­tin­ue to op­er­ate with im­puni­ty sug­gests they fear no one, al­though from Jan­u­ary to Ju­ly, over 300 peo­ple have been charged for cop­per theft.

Un­der Sec­tion 69 (1) of the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, a per­son who ma­li­cious­ly dam­ages, re­moves, or de­stroys telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture is li­able to a max­i­mum fine of $250,000 and im­pris­on­ment of five years.

Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son, who has begged the Gov­ern­ment not to shut down the in­dus­try - claim­ing it will put thou­sands of peo­ple on the bread­line - must re­alise those who are com­mit­ting these acts are putting the coun­try’s in­fra­struc­ture in jeop­ardy and in­con­ve­nienc­ing thou­sands dai­ly.

It is time the Gov­ern­ment moves quick­ly to bring what is cer­tain­ly a lu­cra­tive trade for those in­volved to a halt. Those ben­e­fit­ting from the sale of the stolen cop­per and scrap iron may not even be those who are caught steal­ing the ma­te­r­i­al, since it seems there are larg­er forces be­hind the ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ei­ther way, the au­thor­i­ties must get to the root of those be­hind this boom­ing in­dus­try. It can­not be that some­thing more se­ri­ous hap­pens be­fore se­vere ac­tion is tak­en.

The most re­cent in­ci­dent crip­pling TSTT’s in­fra­struc­ture must be a wake-up call.

The Prime Min­is­ter owes it to cit­i­zens to keep his word and if this lat­est in­ci­dent is not enough to prompt ac­tion, we don’t know what will.

These thieves and those be­hind them must be stopped, even if it means shut­ting down the in­dus­try pend­ing a deep­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Re­mem­ber, Dr Row­ley, you said: “Man­hole cov­er, it doesn’t mat­ter if you fall in the hole and break your neck, or kill your wife, or kill your child, they are sell­ing that, they cut­ting the ca­bles, now they cut­ting the wa­ter lines.”

Well, they are cut­ting fi­bre op­tic and cop­per ca­bles. So, do we have to wait for an in­ci­dent of a more se­vere mag­ni­tude for ac­tion?