Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Some of T&T’s es­tab­lished con­struc­tion and ag­gre­gate com­pa­nies are among 57 firms and in­di­vid­u­als fined for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, ac­cord­ing to doc­u­ments ob­tained from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs. These com­pa­nies are al­so among 44 il­le­gal min­ing op­er­a­tions “to be closed/shut down since Jan­u­ary 2020.”

The doc­u­ments were re­ceived via a let­ter in April through a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act re­quest by the Sun­day Guardian in Jan­u­ary 2023.

The En­er­gy Min­istry did not state the val­ues of the fines, and sub­se­quent at­tempts to get the fig­ures were un­suc­cess­ful.

Ac­cord­ing to a source at one of the fined com­pa­nies—state-owned Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NQ­CL)—the to­tal fines paid by their com­pa­ny are in the mil­lions. The source and oth­er in­dus­try sources said the il­le­gal quar­ry­ing in­dus­try was worth bil­lions of dol­lars.

Sev­er­al of the com­pa­nies list­ed in the doc­u­ments are re­cip­i­ents of mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar state con­struc­tion con­tracts. Con­struc­tion projects re­quire ag­gre­gates such as sand, grav­el and stones for con­crete, as­phalt, earth fill, road bases and sub-bases. The ag­gre­gates are ob­tained from lo­cal quar­ries.

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 12(1) of the Min­er­als Act Chap­ter 61:03, “No per­son shall ex­plore for mine, process or im­port or ex­port min­er­als ex­cept un­der the au­thor­i­ty of a li­cence is­sued un­der this Act.” Sec­tion 45(1) of the Act states, “A per­son who ex­plores for, or mines, process­es, im­ports or ex­ports any ma­te­r­i­al with­out a li­cense is­sued un­der this Act; or mines in an area that is not a min­ing zone com­mits an of­fence and shall, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, be li­able to a fine of $500,000 and 5 years im­pris­on­ment, and in the case of a sub­se­quent con­vic­tion for such of­fence, shall be li­able to a fine of $700,000 and 7 years im­pris­on­ment.”

A Sun­day Guardian in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­vealed that a large-scale quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tion earns mil­lions of dol­lars every month. This was con­firmed by a Na­tion­al Quar­ries Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed source and oth­er in­dus­try sources.

“The op­er­a­tors are on­ly pay­ing for diesel, op­er­a­tors and key man­pow­er like hav­ing me­chan­ics on sites. You are talk­ing about at least $5 to $7 mil­lion in four weeks—min­i­mum. If it’s $5 mil­lion, it’s be­cause of rain. Once the weath­er is good, $7 mil­lion, every four weeks. And when you di­vulge that, they will know you re­al­ly spoke to some­one in the in­dus­try. Those are hard, ev­i­dence-based num­bers,” a well-placed quar­ry in­dus­try source said.

“If you take it out of the land and process it, it means the State los­es the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do it. They are pulling from the State’s re­serves,” the source said, adding that each tonne of ag­gre­gate sells for around $150 on the lo­cal mar­ket and US$50 on the re­gion­al mar­ket.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, di­rec­tors of some com­pa­nies list­ed in the doc­u­ment as re­cip­i­ents of fines or whose quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions have been shut down/closed de­nied that their com­pa­nies mined il­le­gal­ly. They claimed to be fol­low­ing the laws and reg­u­la­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, Coos­al’s was fined for op­er­at­ing an il­le­gal min­ing op­er­a­tion on state land at Tapana Road, Va­len­cia, and the com­pa­ny was fined at least once for min­ing il­le­gal­ly on pri­vate land in Mara­cas, St Joseph. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Coos­al’s had two il­le­gal min­ing op­er­a­tions on state land at Blocks B and C of Tapana Road, Va­len­cia shut down/closed.

Coos­al’s: That in­for­ma­tion is in­ac­cu­rate

When con­tact­ed by the Sun­day Guardian, the CEO of Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny Sie­u­nar­ine Coos­al claimed he knows noth­ing of it. Coos­al said the com­pa­ny has nev­er op­er­at­ed an il­le­gal quar­ry. He said the com­pa­ny has two quar­ries—a lime­stone quar­ry in Mara­cas that is pri­vate­ly owned, as well as a sand and grav­el quar­ry on state land in Tapana, Va­len­cia. He in­sist­ed that the com­pa­ny is up-to-date on fil­ing every doc­u­ment nec­es­sary for li­cens­ing.

“That in­for­ma­tion is in­ac­cu­rate. We have nev­er been fined for any­thing at all. Coos­al’s has been op­er­at­ing for many, many years in the in­dus­try. We nev­er had any prob­lems with our min­ing op­er­a­tions at all. We have our min­ing li­cences and so on. Coos­al’s got the award for op­er­at­ing the best lime­stone and sand/grav­el quar­ries for six years in suc­ces­sion.

“We have set the stan­dard in the quar­ry­ing in­dus­try. With­out quar­ry­ing, there is no con­struc­tion in­dus­try. We are the ones try­ing to stop il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. We are the ones go­ing af­ter it,” he said.

While Coos­al claimed that the com­pa­ny’s two quar­ries are le­gal, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of En­er­gy doc­u­ments, the quar­ries are not li­cenced. The com­pa­ny al­so did not have a li­cence to mine in Sep­tem­ber 2020, ac­cord­ing to a list pub­lished on the En­er­gy Min­istry’s web­site.

Coos­al’s Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly work­ing on the con­struc­tion of the New San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal. The project, ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed this year, will cost around $850 mil­lion. Coos­al’s is al­so work­ing on a La­dy Hailes Av­enue Road Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Widen­ing Project.

Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tors CEO not aware of the com­pa­ny be­ing fined

Apart from Coos­al’s, Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tors Lim­it­ed was list­ed in the doc­u­ments as one of the re­cip­i­ents of fines from the En­er­gy Min­istry for il­le­gal min­ing on state land at Soledad Road in Clax­ton Bay. How­ev­er, ac­cord­ing to Dave Aqui, the CEO of the group of com­pa­nies, he is not aware of the com­pa­ny be­ing fined for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. The com­pa­ny is not list­ed as hav­ing a min­ing li­cence as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023.

Ju­nior Sam­my Con­trac­tors is cur­rent­ly work­ing on the Diego Mar­tin Ve­hic­u­lar Over­pass, which is ex­pect­ed to cost around $42 mil­lion. The com­pa­ny al­so worked on well-known state con­struc­tion projects, such as the Solomon Ho­choy High­way Ex­ten­sion Project, the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal project and oth­ers.

Seereer­am Broth­ers man­ag­er: We were nev­er fined, we op­er­ate

with­in our li­cence

Mean­while, Seereer­am Broth­ers Lim­it­ed was al­so list­ed as be­ing fined for quar­ry­ing il­le­gal­ly on state lands at An­tigua Road, Waller­fied. The com­pa­ny, the En­er­gy Min­istry doc­u­ment stat­ed, al­so re­ceived a fine for min­ing il­le­gal­ly on pri­vate lands at Stud­ley Park, To­ba­go. The com­pa­ny does have a li­cence, how­ev­er, to mine legal­ly at Can­gre­jal Road in San­ta Cruz.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Seereer­am Broth­ers Lim­it­ed’s Man­ag­er of Hu­man Re­sources Rishi Ra­goo­nan said the com­pa­ny was not aware of re­ceiv­ing fines for il­le­gal quar­ry­ing. In fact, he con­tend­ed that Seereer­am Broth­ers was one of the few or­gan­i­sa­tions to be op­er­at­ing a quar­ry with a valid li­cence. He said many oth­er quar­ries were min­ing with their ap­pli­ca­tions to mine in (but not nec­es­sar­i­ly ap­proved) with the En­er­gy Min­istry.

“We were nev­er fined, and we op­er­ate with­in our li­cence. Our quar­ry at Stud­ley Park, To­ba­go has not been op­er­a­tional for over 20 years, and yeah, we have no equip­ment there. We own the lands in To­ba­go, but we have not had any use for the quar­ry for over 20 years. No ac­tiv­i­ty there at all.

“At An­tigua Road, we have a plant there, but we don’t quar­ry there. That’s just ba­si­cal­ly open land, and we have as­phalt plants there, but no quar­ry­ing goes on there,” he claimed.

Among the state con­struc­tion projects that Seereer­am Broth­ers Lim­it­ed worked on is the con­struc­tion of the Claude Noel High­way in To­ba­go, the San Fer­nan­do In­ter­change, and the Barataria Fly­over, as well as the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and con­struc­tion of sev­er­al road­ways and bridges.

Na­tion­al Quar­ries owes Govt mil­lions in roy­al­ties

At­tempts to get com­ments from the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment at Na­tion­al Quar­ries were un­suc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, a well-placed source at Na­tion­al Quar­ries, whose iden­ti­ty was with­held for safe­ty, con­firmed that the com­pa­ny has been fined many times by the State.

“It’s mil­lions. The truth is there are fines that the ma­jor­i­ty of quar­ry op­er­a­tors pay and that’s be­cause a lot of us do not have a min­ing li­cence, which in­cludes the Gov­ern­ment quar­ry, be­lieve it or not. This is why I have to be anony­mous.

“We are in the process of get­ting it, but the fact is that we don’t have it. It’s a de­lay on the side of Na­tion­al Quar­ries. We have a host of ad­min­is­tra­tional stuff to be­come a le­gal quar­ry,” the source said.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the source said, the state com­pa­ny, as of 2022, owes be­tween $35 to $55 mil­lion in roy­al­ties. The se­nior NQLC source said there was an over­whelm­ing lack of reg­u­la­tion in the in­dus­try, re­sult­ing in un­li­cenced com­pa­nies ex­tract­ing tonnes up­on tonnes of ag­gre­gate from state lands with­out pay­ing roy­al­ties or fines.

“The re­al theft, trust and be­lieve what I’m telling you, is by some of the big­ger com­pa­nies, and it’s done in such a way, it’s al­most le­gal be­cause they don’t have a li­cence. They get quar­ry lands from the Gov­ern­ment, but they now need a li­cence to ex­tract it. They mine out their por­tion and mine out ad­ja­cent lands.

“Who could ob­tain more ma­te­r­i­al? The lit­tle guys with an ex­ca­va­tor or the guys with mul­ti­ple ex­ca­va­tors and trac­tors? This is com­ing from me as some­one in the bo­som of the in­dus­try. I am not some­one who is spec­u­lat­ing,” the Na­tion­al Quar­ries Lim­it­ed source said in a face-to-face meet­ing with the Sun­day Guardian.

He said there was no way to stop the wrong­do­ers be­cause mak­ing re­ports in­ter­nal­ly or to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties will like­ly re­sult in death, giv­en the mon­ey in­volved.

“How do you stop them? Na­tion­al Quar­ries is sit­ting on 22 acres in San­gre Grande and a ma­jor con­struc­tion com­pa­ny is en­croach­ing on us. It’s state land. When they en­croach on some­one’s land by the time you blink and look back what was a moun­tain is now a ditch be­cause they are gone.

“I saw a re­cent quar­ry sto­ry on CNC3 news (about a small il­le­gal quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tion). How much ma­te­r­i­al do you feel he could take? On­ly cer­tain com­pa­nies can do it. The fines and all they don’t want to pay. They find a way to avoid it,” the source added.

Sun­day Guardian was un­able to reach the man­age­ment of sev­er­al oth­er com­pa­nies list­ed and made a de­ci­sion to with­hold the names un­til they could be reached.

Com­pa­nies with min­ing li­cences to legal­ly quar­ry as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023

De­spite scores of ac­tive quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tions across the coun­try, as of Jan­u­ary 1, 2023, eight or­gan­i­sa­tions have been giv­en min­ing li­cences to legal­ly quar­ry. Those or­gan­i­sa­tions, ac­cord­ing to the En­er­gy Min­istry, are Seer­eram Broth­ers Lim­it­ed at Can­gre­jal Road in San­ta Cruz; Fir­ma Fab­ri­ca­tion and Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed at Block F in the Mela­jo For­est Re­serve; Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in Co­co Road, Clax­ton Bay, and Mil­ton Vil­lage, Cou­va; AADS Mul­ti-Task­ing Lim­it­ed at Rio Grande Trace, Matu­ra; ANSA McAL En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed at De­pot Road, Long­denville; Bicks Au­to Whole­salers Lim­it­ed at Block A in the Mela­jo For­est Re­serve, as well as Kall Co Ltd in Block B, Mela­jo For­est Re­serve.

Op­er­a­tors owe Govt $193 mil­lion as of Jan­u­ary 2020

Ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent Ex­trac­tive In­dus­tries Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive Coun­try Re­port on T&T, quar­ry op­er­a­tors owe the Gov­ern­ment $193 mil­lion in roy­al­ty pay­ments as of Jan­u­ary 2020.

“This is due to the un­der-re­port­ing of min­er­al pro­duc­tion vol­umes and the chal­lenges in col­lect­ing roy­al­ties owed. Be­tween 2004 and 2019, the Gov­ern­ment should have re­ceived a to­tal of TT$222 mil­lion from quar­ry op­er­a­tors, but op­er­a­tors’ pay­ments amount­ed to TT$29 mil­lion,” the re­port said.

To get a sense of what the roy­al­ties could be used for, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, in his jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the in­crease in the price of the air bridge and sea bridge tick­ets, said in the 2023 Na­tion­al Bud­get that it costs the State $100 mil­lion a year to sub­sidise the air bridge and $200 mil­lion a year to sub­sidise the sea bridge. He said the State al­so spends ap­prox­i­mate­ly $175 mil­lion per year on food sup­port.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­tral Sta­tis­ti­cal Of­fice, the con­struc­tion and quar­ry­ing in­dus­try ac­count­ed for ap­prox­i­mate­ly $22.65 bil­lion of the coun­try’s Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct be­tween the years 2000 to 2004.

That made it the fourth high­est-earn­ing sec­tor in that pe­ri­od be­hind the pe­tro­le­um in­dus­tries, dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices, and fi­nance, in­sur­ance, re­al es­tate and busi­ness ser­vices.

No in­fo on fines from En­er­gy Min­istry

At­tempts to get a com­ment from the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs about the fines re­ceived by the com­pa­nies list­ed were un­suc­cess­ful de­spite re­peat­ed ef­forts. Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young al­so did not re­spond to ques­tions.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so re­quest­ed com­ment from the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Con­trac­tor’ As­so­ci­a­tion. Glenn Ma­habirs­ingh, but he did not pro­vide one.