KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) sup­ports the un­stuff­ing and scan­ning of ship­ping con­tain­ers packed with scrapped met­al and says it is some­thing the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) should have been do­ing all along.

TTSI­DA pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son says mem­bers will not sup­port any col­lec­tion yards that pur­chase stolen items from scrap iron deal­ers.

Fer­gu­son was re­spond­ing to a rev­e­la­tion by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert that the CED and po­lice found stolen Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices cop­per ca­ble and ma­chin­ery from en­er­gy-sec­tor com­pa­nies in con­tain­ers stuck at the ports of Port-of-Spain and Point Lisas.

The con­tain­ers re­mained at ports af­ter the Gov­ern­ment en­act­ed a six-month ban on the ex­port of used met­als to crack­down on thefts. The CED and po­lice are con­tin­u­ing the ex­er­cise.

“We are not even go­ing to try to as­sist them in try­ing to help them hold their li­cens­es. We will sup­port the Gov­ern­ment tak­ing away their li­cens­es be­cause we want to get rid of all these types of peo­ple in our in­dus­try be­cause these are the peo­ple who are caus­ing hav­oc. For the thou­sands and thou­sands of peo­ple out of em­ploy­ment, these are the peo­ple (thieves) caus­ing the prob­lems,” Fer­gu­son said.

He said the in­dus­try faces the same as many oth­ers, point­ing out that there are Po­lice Ser­vice, De­fence Force and CED mem­bers who break the rules and bring shame to their or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Fer­gu­son said T&T is a law­less coun­try, but a few bad ap­ples should not cause the Gov­ern­ment to shut down an en­tire in­dus­try.

Even be­fore Im­bert an­nounced the CED’s plans to ac­quire four new scan­ners, Fer­gu­son said the TTSI­DA urged the Gov­ern­ment to get equip­ment to check con­sign­ments. 

The six-month ban will ex­pire next month, but Fer­gu­son said it is hard to pre­dict the Gov­ern­ment.

Last No­vem­ber, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour said the Gov­ern­ment would con­sid­er par­tial­ly lift­ing the ban be­fore De­cem­ber 31, 2022.

Ar­mour did not give a date on when deal­ers could re­sume op­er­a­tions.

It is now three weeks in­to Jan­u­ary 2023, and Fer­gu­son says the TTSI­DA has not heard any­thing from the Gov­ern­ment.

“If it was them who had to wait and wait with­out work for four months, with­out feed­ing their fam­i­lies and with­out se­cur­ing their bills, how would it have felt for them? Right now, it is thou­sands of poor peo­ple be­cause this in­dus­try em­ploys thou­sands of peo­ple. Right now, we are just wait­ing and have to wait on the Gov­ern­ment, and noth­ing seems to be hap­pen­ing.”

Fer­gu­son said check­ing con­sign­ments should not re­strict the op­er­a­tions of the in­dus­try. He said TTSI­DA al­so has a plan to alert the ex­ec­u­tive when stolen items en­ter scrap col­lec­tion yards. Once there are re­ports, the TTSI­DA will no­ti­fy the po­lice.

Re­gard­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of steel for the as­sem­bly of the North Stand at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Fer­gu­son said there is no ev­i­dence that any TTSI­DA mem­bers took it.

He said some peo­ple quick­ly blame scrap iron deal­ers when met­al goes miss­ing.

How­ev­er, Fer­gu­son said con­trac­tors could use the steel on oth­er projects. He said there are 24/7 ac­tiv­i­ties tak­ing place at the sa­van­nah, so it was strange that ma­te­ri­als were miss­ing.