RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Giv­en the re­cent videos go­ing vi­ral on so­cial me­dia of al­leged cop­per ban­dits caught in the act of cut­ting and steal­ing cop­per wires, the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing for a more col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort to bring this un­law­ful act to an end.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent, Al­lan Fer­gu­son, not­ed that de­spite re­peat­ed calls on in­di­vid­u­als to re­frain from steal­ing cop­per wires, man­hole cov­ers and oth­er met­als, “this un­law­ful act still un­con­vinced.”

“The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion is aware of the nu­mer­ous in­stances where liveli­hoods are be­ing dis­rupt­ed as a re­sult of these types of theft,” Fer­gu­son said.

On Sat­ur­day, it was re­port­ed that two homes were de­stroyed in a fire which is be­lieved to have been caused by an elec­tri­cal is­sue that was caused by cop­per theft.

Al­so, lives were lost in the past as a re­sult of peo­ple at­tempt­ing to steal these wires for sale.

“TTSI­DA views this sit­u­a­tion as very un­for­tu­nate and it must be ad­dressed,” Fer­gu­son said.

He not­ed that the scrap iron in­dus­try had seen an in­crease in peo­ple com­ing in­to the in­dus­try in the midst of the pan­dem­ic af­ter many suf­fered job loss­es and were forced to find dif­fer­ent means of sur­vival.

He point­ed out that even with re­stric­tions be­ing lift­ed and the re-open­ing of the coun­try, many peo­ple con­tin­ue to de­pend on the in­dus­try to sur­vive on a dai­ly ba­sis.

“While we em­pathise with their sit­u­a­tion, we strong­ly con­demn any act of theft,” he said.

“TTSI­DA is of the firm view that there are peo­ple in our coun­try who are seek­ing to tar­nish the in­dus­try and con­tribute to its demise,” Fer­gu­son added.

“As the recog­nised as­so­ci­a­tion, we can­not and will not al­low this to hap­pen. How­ev­er, we can­not do it alone. There needs to be a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to ad­dress­ing this dire sit­u­a­tion.” he added.

The as­so­ci­a­tion is once again call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to has­ten the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the much-need­ed leg­is­la­tion to reg­u­larise the in­dus­try and urges mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port in­stances of theft to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

“We call on law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to ar­rest the cul­prits and bring them to jus­tice,” Fer­gu­son said.

“TTSI­DA is once again call­ing on Scrap Iron Deal­ers to ab­stain from buy­ing stolen items from mem­bers of the pub­lic. And to the in­di­vid­u­als who see it fit to con­tin­ue to com­mit these self­ish, un­law­ful acts, we call on you to de­sist. You can­not con­tin­ue to dis­rupt the liveli­hoods of the cit­i­zens of this coun­try.”