Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries has con­tact­ed the new­ly formed Trinidad and To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers Al­liance (TTA­PA) amid on­go­ing con­cerns over the is­suance of sand and grav­el pro­cess­ing li­cences.

TTA­PA pres­i­dent Nigel Tenia said the Min­istry’s Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als reached out to the as­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day, re­quest­ing in­for­ma­tion on its mem­bers and of­fi­cers, which he has pro­vid­ed via email.

Tenia al­so called on Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, to clar­i­fy whether any pro­cess­ing li­cences for sand and grav­el had been is­sued with­in the past 25 years.

He not­ed that while TTA­PA did not dis­pute the ex­is­tence of li­cences for lime­stone and oth­er min­er­als, there ap­peared to be no ev­i­dence of any for sand and grav­el since 2000. Ac­cord­ing to the group, the last known li­cence dates back to 1998, be­fore the Min­er­als Act was pro­claimed.

TTA­PA, which rep­re­sents ap­prox­i­mate­ly 24 op­er­a­tors across T&T, held an emer­gency meet­ing yes­ter­day to dis­cuss its next steps and to con­sid­er for­mal ac­tion if the min­istry failed to pro­vide clar­i­ty on the mat­ter.

The group al­so con­firmed that its strike would con­tin­ue, with op­er­a­tions re­main­ing sus­pend­ed un­til the li­cens­ing is­sue was re­solved.

Mooni­lal had ear­li­er ques­tioned the le­git­i­ma­cy of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, not­ing that it was a rel­a­tive­ly new body.

Tenia ac­knowl­edged this but in­sist­ed the as­so­ci­a­tion’s age should not dis­tract from the sub­stan­tive is­sue.

“We ac­cept that the min­is­ter may not be fa­mil­iar with us; it’s a new as­so­ci­a­tion,” Tenia said.

“I want to urge the Di­rec­tor of Min­er­als to fo­cus on the mes­sage, not the mes­sen­ger. Whether or not we are new, we are cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, band­ing to­geth­er to shed light on a sit­u­a­tion that has frus­trat­ed the in­dus­try for the last 25 years.”

The al­liance said it would con­tin­ue to call for ur­gent di­a­logue with the En­er­gy Min­istry to ad­dress what it de­scribed as a bro­ken and out­dat­ed reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work gov­ern­ing sand and grav­el pro­cess­ing li­cences.