Government has no plans to move ahead with its plans for the smelter plant until the matter is settled in court, said Energy Minister Conrad Enill.
"We are not going to move forward unless we get an approval. But so far as our original position was, there are arrangements that need to be made for the projects required. Once the court agrees with us, that's fine, but if not, then we'll go to the other stage to get our lawyers to look at it again and do the re-application," Enill said. He was speaking yesterday at the signing of the Alutrint/Votorantim project agreement at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad hotel, Port-of-Spain. The Brazilian industrial group, Votorantim Metais, has now joined the government as the equity partner in the Alutrint's aluminium smelter plant. In June, the High Court issued a temporary ruling halting the construction of the smelter plant.
Responding to questions from the media as to why government was going ahead with the signing despite the court's ruling, Enill said these projects were decided way before the ruling. "The signing of the agreement was something that was on for a very long time. You would recall that there are two matters before the court and that is the basis of which the matter is before the court. The signing of the agreement here does not in any way move the process forward. "The Environmental Management Authority (EMA) granted the organisation a certificate of environmental clearance (CEC), so there was a basis moving forward. Certain elements of it the court considered not appropriately done, but on all the other elements, the court agreed. So on these two issues, the representations are being made to clarify the issue," Enill said.
"That site belongs to La Brea Industrial Development Company (Labidco) and there are a lot of other things that are going on there. Whatever is going on is going on under the CEC, approved for one of the other companies, but not the smelter. Work could be going, but on the work National Energy Corporation (NEC) has to do, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the building of the smelter," he said.