Ali­cia Llanos

So what! That was Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Con­rad Enill's re­sponse when asked why the No Smelter Groups of T&T have had to wait four years to get a cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis and de­tailed ac­count of the costs of the Alutrint Smelter Plant. Enill was speak­ing yes­ter­day when en­ter­ing the Min­istry of En­er­gy, Tow­er C, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, to meet with mem­bers of the No Smelter Groups of T&T, who staged a sit-down demon­stra­tion in the tow­er's lob­by. Ac­tivist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh said the com­mit­tee had been call­ing on the min­istry and Alutrint to pro­vide a cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis and a de­tailed re­port of Alutrint's ac­counts for the last four years.

Kublals­ingh said it had sub­mit­ted re­quests through the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act and still had not re­ceived an an­swer. He said Alutrint and the min­istry need­ed to jus­ti­fy the ben­e­fits of the project, both fi­nan­cial­ly and so­cial­ly. He said their fail­ure to do so had forced them to di­rect­ly come to the min­is­ter and de­mand a meet­ing with him. Kublals­ingh sat with two oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee and three con­cerned res­i­dents of Square Deal Vil­lage, La Brea, who were there to protest re­lo­ca­tion and the health dan­gers of the smelter project.

Speak­ing on be­half of the La Brea res­i­dents, Leon Mod­est said the ben­e­fits promised by the smelter were out­weighed by the neg­a­tives. He said no re­lo­ca­tion had tak­en place and res­i­dents were forced to suf­fer with health prob­lems due to the con­struc­tion. Af­ter an hour-and-a-half of sit­ting, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 mem­bers of the Guard and Emer­gency Branch stormed in­to the build­ing and de­mand­ed the group leave. Kublals­ingh and the rest of the group stood their ground and af­ter some brief ne­go­ti­a­tions, they were sum­moned in­to the min­istry's of­fices for the meet­ing they had de­mand­ed.

Short­ly af­ter the group had been moved up­stairs, Enill en­tered the build­ing and told the me­dia there were no health dan­gers to the res­i­dents of La Brea. He said "so what," when told about the group's four-year strug­gle to at­tain the re­ports. In less than an hour Kublals­ingh re­turned down­stairs and took his place on the floor. He said the min­is­ter had not been able to pro­vide him with what he asked for and that Enill did not ful­ly un­der­stand the im­por­tance of the mat­ter. He said Enill did not have cost re­ports and wasn't sure whether or not a cost-ben­e­fit analy­sis had been done.

He said Enill told them the Gov­ern­ment would re­lease the in­for­ma­tion when they felt it would be ap­pro­pri­ate, which he said was a bla­tant vi­o­la­tion of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act. Kublals­ingh said the group would not stop protest­ing un­til it was giv­en the in­for­ma­tion it was ask­ing for. Up to 4.30 pm yes­ter­day, Kublals­ingh and the group were still at the min­istry's of­fices.