sto­ries by

An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers Al­liance (TTA­PA) is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress long-stand­ing reg­u­la­to­ry chal­lenges in the coun­try’s ag­gre­gate pro­cess­ing in­dus­try, which it says has op­er­at­ed for a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry with­out a sin­gle pro­cess­ing li­cence be­ing grant­ed.

Speak­ing on be­half of TTA­PA yes­ter­day at the Hilton Ho­tel, Pres­i­dent Nigel Tenia said the in­dus­try, which is cen­tral to con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment, now faces mount­ing un­cer­tain­ty and le­gal am­bi­gu­i­ty that threat­ens both op­er­a­tors and the broad­er econ­o­my. He de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a “moun­tain” that needs ur­gent at­ten­tion, not just for in­dus­try but for the coun­try as a whole.

Ag­gre­gate pro­cess­ing, Tenia em­pha­sised, is crit­i­cal to the con­struc­tion sec­tor. With­out it, es­sen­tial ma­te­ri­als such as ce­ment, con­crete, clay blocks,and oth­er build­ing com­po­nents can­not be pro­duced. The in­dus­try un­der­pins ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects and pro­vides em­ploy­ment for thou­sands of work­ers. Yet de­spite its im­por­tance, op­er­a­tors have been un­able to se­cure the prop­er le­gal frame­works to op­er­ate, leav­ing the en­tire sec­tor ex­posed to po­ten­tial en­force­ment ac­tion.

Tenia stressed that the prob­lem dates back to the Min­er­al Act of 2000. In the 25 years, no com­pa­ny has been is­sued a li­cence to process sand and grav­el. As a re­sult, all par­tic­i­pants in the sup­ply chain, from ce­ment pro­duc­ers to clay block man­u­fac­tur­ers, are tech­ni­cal­ly op­er­at­ing out­side the law. This, Tenia warned, cre­ates sys­temic risk. Should au­thor­i­ties strict­ly en­force li­cens­ing re­quire­ments, even well-in­ten­tioned op­er­a­tors could be pe­nalised, threat­en­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of the sec­tor and dis­rupt­ing na­tion­al con­struc­tion projects.

TTA­PA is urg­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy to in­ter­vene and pro­vide a path­way for reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion. Tenia point­ed out that the is­sue is not po­lit­i­cal but struc­tur­al, re­quir­ing re­form to align reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works with in­dus­try re­al­i­ties.

The Al­liance al­so un­der­scored its will­ing­ness to work with the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment mean­ing­ful so­lu­tions that en­sure com­pli­ance while sup­port­ing growth in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, which has the ca­pac­i­ty to ab­sorb thou­sands of work­ers dis­placed from oth­er in­dus­tries.

TTA­PA high­light­ed the dis­par­i­ty be­tween cur­rent reg­u­la­to­ry re­quire­ments and in­dus­try prac­tice. Sev­er­al ma­jor op­er­a­tors, in­clud­ing Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd, Readymix and Na­tion­al Quar­ries, do not ap­pear on of­fi­cial records as they are hold­ing pro­cess­ing li­cens­es. This sit­u­a­tion, Tenia said, adds an ad­di­tion­al lay­er of un­cer­tain­ty for in­vestors and op­er­a­tors, af­fect­ing fi­nanc­ing, sup­pli­er re­la­tion­ships and over­all op­er­a­tional sta­bil­i­ty.

The Al­liance has for­mal­ly re­quest­ed a meet­ing with Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and is seek­ing a re­sponse with­in sev­en days.
The goal, he said, is to dis­cuss a clear frame­work for li­cens­ing and com­pli­ance that brings the in­dus­try ful­ly un­der the law, re­moves am­bi­gu­i­ty for op­er­a­tors, and en­sures the sec­tor can con­tin­ue to sup­port na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment goals.

Tenia con­clud­ed by stress­ing that TTA­PA is not seek­ing to re­sist over­sight or ac­count­abil­i­ty. Rather, the Al­liance aims to col­lab­o­rate with the gov­ern­ment to cre­ate a sus­tain­able, le­gal and well-reg­u­lat­ed frame­work that al­lows the ag­gre­gate pro­cess­ing in­dus­try to con­tin­ue serv­ing as the back­bone of con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture in T&T.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Dr Mooni­lal, who in­di­cat­ed that he would in­quire in­to the mat­ter, but he did not give any fur­ther up­date up to press time.