RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie says the Gov­ern­ment will in­ves­ti­gate why Ce­mex Trinidad Ce­ment Ltd (TCL) has opt­ed to bring in 35 Mex­i­can work­ers to ser­vice its kilns, de­spite the pres­ence of com­pe­tent lo­cals with the nec­es­sary spe­cialised skills.

This fol­lows re­ports that a con­trac­tor hired by Ce­mex, the Mex­i­can ce­ment gi­ant con­trol­ling about 70 per cent of TCL shares, im­port­ed work­ers to per­form re­frac­to­ry (brick) changes in the kiln as part of sched­uled main­te­nance.

Sources re­vealed to Guardian Me­dia that these work­ers, stay­ing at Cara Suites, were cho­sen over lo­cal and Venezue­lan coun­ter­parts.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mc Clashie ex­pressed sur­prise at the re­ports and pledged a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

He al­so stressed the avail­abil­i­ty and com­pe­tence of lo­cal re­frac­to­ry con­trac­tors, ques­tion­ing the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­hind Ce­mex TCL de­ci­sions.

“I am not aware of the the de­tails as enun­ci­at­ed by you or whether the sto­ry is true… if it were then I would be sur­prised as to the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­ing giv­en… Re­frac­to­ry work and re­frac­to­ry con­trac­tors are avail­able in Trinidad and they are very com­pe­tent," Mc Clashie said.

He added: "I’ll have to take a deep­er dive in­to the cir­cum­stances."

But in re­sponse, TCL con­firmed that "35 peo­ple who are part of a com­pa­ny con­tract­ed by TCL and sup­port­ed by 175 lo­cal con­trac­tors came in­to T&T to per­form high­ly spe­cialised works re­lat­ed to sched­uled main­te­nance at its Clax­ton Bay plant.

"The process, which is a man­u­al one, de­mands specif­i­cal­ly skilled man­pow­er with the ex­per­tise and ex­pe­ri­ence to han­dle the com­plex and haz­ardous con­di­tions in­side the com­pa­ny’s kilns," TCL said.

The spe­cial­ized work in­volves the re­place­ment of spe­cial bricks that can with­stand the high tem­per­a­tures and pres­sures in­side these cylin­dri­cal kilns that pro­duce clink­er, the main in­gre­di­ent of ce­ment.

"These are in­stalled with pre­ci­sion and care, fol­low­ing strict safe­ty pro­to­cols. This work is nec­es­sary to en­sure the safe­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy of the kilns, and ul­ti­mate­ly, the qual­i­ty and con­sis­ten­cy of the lo­cal TCL ce­ment brand. The best prac­tice is to un­der­go this ex­er­cise every 12 to 18 months for 20 to 25 days (per kiln. To­tal of 2) de­pend­ing on the wear and tear of the bricks and kiln," TCL ex­plained.

Say­ing that it val­ues the sup­port of lo­cal con­trac­tors in the ar­eas of en­gi­neer­ing, su­per­vi­sion, ma­son­ry, and weld­ing for this main­te­nance work, TCL said: "Giv­en the unique de­mands and mag­ni­tude of the job, and the nar­row time frame de­signed to en­sure min­i­mal im­pact on its op­er­a­tions, these ad­di­tion­al high­ly spe­cialised con­trac­tors are nec­es­sary to achieve over­all busi­ness ob­jec­tives."

The com­pa­ny al­so said the ex­perts are part of a spe­cialised work­force that trav­els around the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca, work­ing for the ce­ment in­dus­try, not on­ly for Ce­mex and the TCL Group.

"We con­tin­ue to fo­cus on of­fer­ing an en­gag­ing, in­clu­sive, and stim­u­lat­ing en­vi­ron­ment for our peo­ple, where our more than 300 col­lab­o­ra­tors, 95 per cent of which are lo­cal, can reach their full po­ten­tial," the com­pa­ny said.

TCL al­so said it of­fers a wide range of train­ing and de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes on an on­go­ing ba­sis with over 72,000 hours of train­ing con­duct­ed in 2023.