T&T's scrap met­al in­dus­try is now reg­u­lat­ed through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a scrap met­al pol­i­cy. To in­form de­vel­op­ment of the pol­i­cy, the Min­istry of Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ment (MTII) host­ed a se­ries of con­sul­ta­tions with pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor stake­hold­ers, start­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2012, to iden­ti­fy crit­i­cal is­sues af­fect­ing the in­dus­try. The stake­hold­ers in­clud­ed rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment min­istries, pub­lic util­i­ties and scrap met­al deal­ers.

Al­lan Fer­gu­son, pres­i­dent of the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, has ex­pressed sup­port for the pol­i­cy."The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion has read the Cab­i­net-ap­proved pol­i­cy and agrees on some of the rec­om­men­da­tions that were pre­sent­ed, and we are will­ing and ready to col­lab­o­rate with the Min­istry and in­ter­est­ed par­ties to rec­ti­fy oth­er is­sues," he said.

The over­all ob­jec­tive of the pol­i­cy is to strength­en the ex­ist­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work, tak­ing in­to ac­count in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices and unique na­tion­al cir­cum­stances, to ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress the prob­lems plagu­ing the in­dus­try. Its key ob­jec­tives are to:

�2 Pro­vide con­tem­po­rary guide­lines and reg­u­la­tions to fa­cil­i­tate the op­er­a­tions of the scrap met­al in­dus­try in T&T;

�2 De­vel­op an ef­fec­tive li­cens­ing regime for scrap met­al deal­ers; and

�2 Raise op­er­a­tional stan­dards in the scrap met­al in­dus­try.

The new pol­i­cy is in­tend­ed to pro­vide strin­gent rules and reg­u­la­tions with ac­com­pa­ny­ing penal­ties for non-com­pli­ance. This pol­i­cy, sup­port­ed by the pend­ing amend­ment of the Old Met­al and Ma­rine Stores Act (1904), is con­sid­ered to be the cat­a­lyst nec­es­sary to suc­cess­ful­ly ad­vance the growth and de­vel­op­ment of the scrap met­al in­dus­try in T&T.

Ran­dall Karim, di­rec­tor, Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy MTII, un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the pol­i­cy im­ple­men­ta­tion: "In keep­ing with the Gov­ern­ment's thrust to di­ver­si­fy the econ­o­my and to as­sist in build­ing on non-tra­di­tion­al sec­tors, the Min­istry and its stake­hold­ers have seen the ur­gent need for a pol­i­cy to be de­vel­oped to reg­u­late the scrap met­al in­dus­try which has evolved well be­yond the frame­work of the Old Met­al and Ma­rine Stores Act of 1904 that gov­erns the trade of scrap met­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Some of the is­sues re­vealed at the con­sul­ta­tion were un­fair com­pe­ti­tion; pro­lif­er­a­tion of il­le­gal scrap yards; an out­dat­ed Old Met­al and Ma­rine Stores Act of 1904; scrap met­al theft; mon­ey laun­der­ing; con­ceal­ment of il­le­gal firearms and lack of en­force­ment of health and en­vi­ron­men­tal stan­dards; in­suf­fi­cient cri­te­ria for grant­i­ng li­cens­es; lack of in­spec­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion; in­ad­e­quate mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem; and health haz­ards.

An e-copy ver­sion of the Scrap Met­al Pol­i­cy for T&T can ob­tained at: https://www.ttbi­zlink.gov.tt/trade/tnt/cmn/pdf/Scrap_Met­al_Pol­i­cy_2013.pdf or on the Min­istry's web site at www.tradeind.gov.tt.Ad­di­tion­al­ly, a hard copy of the pol­i­cy can be ob­tained at the Min­istry of Trade, In­dus­try and In­vest­ment Head Of­fice, Lev­el 14, Nicholas Tow­ers, Port-of-Spain.