Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

Scrap iron deal­ers are once again al­lowed to ply their trade with the par­tial procla­ma­tion of the Scrap Met­al Act on Fri­day. How­ev­er, Pres­i­dent of the Scrap Iron Deal­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion Al­lan Fer­gu­son is ask­ing deal­ers to keep their yards closed un­til its sym­po­sium on Wednes­day.

Sched­uled for 10 am at Sig­na­ture Hall, Fer­gu­son told Guardian Me­dia he wants all deal­ers to at­tend, so they can dis­cuss and ed­u­cate them on how they are to func­tion go­ing for­ward un­der the new leg­is­la­tion.

"We with­hold our mem­bers from open­ing un­til we have the stake­hold­er's meet­ing. We need every­body to un­der­stand their func­tion and what they are sup­posed to do be­cause we don't want the in­dus­try to be shut down again," he said.

On Au­gust 12, the Gov­ern­ment banned the ex­port of scrap and old met­als from Trinidad and To­ba­go. It came amidst months of brazen and es­ca­lat­ing thefts, of­ten tar­get­ing state agen­cies which com­pro­mised their abil­i­ty to ser­vice the pop­u­la­tion.

Among stake­hold­ers in­vit­ed to Wednes­day's sym­po­sium, Fer­gu­son said, are the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency, WASA, T&TEC, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from banks and in­sur­ance com­pa­nies.

President of the Scrap Iron Dealers Association Allan Ferguson

VASHTI SINGH

While they are free to op­er­ate, Fer­gu­son lament­ed the in­dus­try's hands re­main tied be­hind its back with nu­mer­ous ex­port li­cences yet to be grant­ed. He said he hoped the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try would ex­pe­dite this process to get the in­dus­try back up and run­ning.

In a re­lease on Fri­day, the min­istry said an in­ter­im qua­si-unit has been es­tab­lished un­der the Trade Li­cence Unit (TLU) and is ready to fa­cil­i­tate the now-re­opened Scrap Met­al In­dus­try. It said up to Feb­ru­ary 24, the TLU has re­ceived 21 Con­sent to En­try Forms and six ap­pli­ca­tions for ex­port li­cences which are now be­ing processed.

Doc­u­ments Re­quired for Ex­porter Li­cence:

Valid Scrap Met­al Deal­er's Li­cence (ie, Scrap Met­al Deal­er's Li­cences is­sued un­der the Old Met­al and Ma­rine Stores Act, for the year end­ed 31 De­cem­ber 2022)

Busi­ness Doc­u­ments (where ap­plic­a­ble)–Com­pa­ny's Board of In­land Rev­enue (BIR) Num­ber, Com­pa­ny's Busi­ness Reg­is­tra­tion Doc­u­ments;

An In­voice (with a date no lat­er than 30 days of in­tend­ed ship­ment) which de­tails the spe­cif­ic de­scrip­tion of the items be­ing ex­port­ed;

A copy of the Scrap Met­al Deal­ers’ Trans­ac­tions Record Ledger and State­ment of Own­er­ship.

In cas­es where an ex­porter wish­es to ship or al­ter scrap met­al un­der the 15-day manda­to­ry pe­ri­od for hold­ing scrap, the ex­porter is re­quired to ap­ply to the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try for per­mis­sion to ship or al­ter scrap met­al us­ing the Ap­pli­ca­tion form for Per­mit for Ship­ment or Al­ter­ation of Scrap Met­al at https://www. ttbi­zlink.gov.tt/tntcmn/. This form is to be sub­mit­ted to the TLU ei­ther via hard copy or email to tlu@gov.tt

A util­i­sa­tion record of the last ex­port li­cence is­sued (Bills of Lad­ing, CARI­COM In­voic­es)–for re­peat ap­pli­cants on­ly

Load­ing of scrap:

An ex­porter who has ob­tained an Ex­port Li­cence is re­quired to give at least sev­en days writ­ten no­tice to the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try at tlu@gov.tt and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice at COP@ttps@gov.tt and copied to Scrap­Met­alU­nit@ttps.gov.tt of their in­ten­tion to load scrap met­al for ex­port, in­clud­ing the lo­ca­tion and time of the load­ing.

This No­tice is to be done on the No­tice of In­ten­tion to Load Scrap Met­al for Ex­port form. This may be down­loaded from https://www. ttbi­zlink.gov.tt/tntcmn/

Where writ­ten no­tice is giv­en, the Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice shall en­sure the rel­e­vant of­fi­cer, which at this time would be a po­lice of­fi­cer, is present at the scrap met­al site to con­duct in­spec­tions while the scrap met­al is be­ing loaded.

The ex­porter is re­quired to com­plete the Scrap Met­al Ex­port Trans­ac­tions Record Ledger Form ob­tain­able at https://www. ttbi­zlink.gov.tt/tntcmn/

This Scrap Met­al Ex­port Trans­ac­tions Record Ledger Form is to be signed off by the au­tho­rised of­fi­cer at the time of load­ing

An ex­porter must on­ly load a freight con­tain­er at the scrap met­al site spec­i­fied in the li­cence of a li­cenced Scrap Met­al Deal­er.