Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the new­ly formed Trinidad and To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers Al­liance (TTA­PA) Nigel Tenia has warned that as many as 100,000 jobs across the con­struc­tion in­dus­try are at risk as quar­ry op­er­a­tors shut down op­er­a­tions over the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to is­sue long-over­due pro­cess­ing li­cences.

Tenia said the clo­sure of its 24 mem­bers’ op­er­a­tions na­tion­wide, which start­ed yes­ter­day, could dis­rupt the sup­ply of sand, grav­el, and oth­er base ma­te­ri­als crit­i­cal to the coun­try’s con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture projects. He said they have all vol­un­tar­i­ly closed their doors to high­light the ur­gent need for re­form in the sec­tor and “safe­guard their liveli­hoods”.

“With­out sand and grav­el, there’s no ce­ment mix, no blocks, no plas­ter, no roof­ing, no wiring, no paint­ing,” Tenia said. “We are the foun­da­tion of the con­struc­tion in­dus­try, and if we stop, every­thing else stops.

“We are not pre­pared to kick the can any fur­ther down the street. We need to fix the process now. We know it won’t be a quick fix be­cause of the num­ber of stake­hold­ers in­volved: the Min­istry of En­er­gy, WASA, EMA, and oth­ers, but, in the in­ter­im, we are call­ing for a three-year mora­to­ri­um so our mem­bers can op­er­ate in peace while the sys­tem is cor­rect­ed.”

Across Trinidad and To­ba­go, there are an es­ti­mat­ed 90 known quar­ry­ing sites where mil­lions of dol­lars in raw ma­te­ri­als—in­clud­ing stone, clay, grav­el, red and sea sand, as­phalt, and tar sands—are ex­tract­ed for use in con­struc­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing and in­dus­tri­al projects.

How­ev­er, au­thor­i­ties be­lieve there are sev­er­al oth­er quar­ries op­er­at­ing un­der the radar, with no for­mal over­sight or reg­u­la­tion.

The eight li­censed op­er­a­tions are Best­crete Lim­it­ed in the Mela­jo For­est Re­serve in Matu­ra; ANSA McAL Lim­it­ed in De­pot Road, Long­denville; Min­er­al Mines of Trinidad Lim­it­ed in Ve­ga de Oropouche; Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in Co­co Road, Clax­ton Bay; Es­tate Man­age­ment and Busi­ness De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed in Mil­ton Vil­lage, Cou­va; AADS Mul­ti-Task­ing Lim­it­ed in Rio Grande Trace, Matu­ra; Fir­ma Fab­ri­ca­tion and Con­struc­tion Lim­it­ed in the Mela­jo For­est Re­serve in San­gre Grande; and Seereer­am Broth­ers Lim­it­ed in Can­gre­jal Road, San­ta Cruz.

Every oth­er quar­ry­ing op­er­a­tion in T&T, whether it is oc­cur­ring on pri­vate or state-owned land, is il­le­gal (un­less it was reg­is­tered af­ter Sep­tem­ber 2020).

The TTA­PA pres­i­dent said the li­cens­ing process has be­come “ar­cha­ic and frus­trat­ing”, point­ing to years of un­ex­plained de­lays with­in the Min­istry of En­er­gy’s Min­er­als Di­vi­sion.

He ac­cused of­fi­cials of stalling ap­proved ap­pli­ca­tions, leav­ing le­git­i­mate op­er­a­tors un­able to work while un­li­censed ones con­tin­ue unchecked.

“There’s no com­mu­ni­ca­tion, no up­dates, no feed­back, and some of our mem­bers have been wait­ing for over five years for a re­sponse,” he added.

TTA­PA has re­port­ed­ly sub­mit­ted ap­pli­ca­tions for pro­cess­ing li­cences on be­half of sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als and com­pa­nies with­in the min­ing sec­tor.

The ap­pli­ca­tions, ac­cord­ing to TTA­PA, in­clude Wal­ter Go­sein, Dan­ny Per­sad, Vishal Go­sein, Sean Ma­haraj, Dan­ny Guer­ra, Para­mount, Swan Quar­ry, Kevon Gar­raway, Carmin­co, Edu Agard, Wood­ford Trad­ing, Kali­fa Quar­ry, Bri­an Bachan, Keon Warn­er, Noel Hinds, An­cil Smith, An­tho­ny Seecha­ran, Ron­del Adol­phus, Howard John, Key­o­die Clarke, Farie Blue Gate, Caribbean Min­er­als Agency, Rawl Fe­lix, and Nigel Tenia.

These sub­mis­sions in­di­cate TTA­PA’s in­ten­tion to en­gage ac­tive­ly in the in­dus­try and seek for­mal recog­ni­tion through prop­er li­cens­ing chan­nels.

He al­so ques­tioned what he de­scribed as se­lec­tive en­force­ment by au­thor­i­ties. Re­fer­ring to the re­cent ar­rest of a quar­ry op­er­a­tor and 15 work­ers for op­er­at­ing with­out a li­cence. Tenia said it was un­fair that oth­er known un­li­censed op­er­a­tions face no sim­i­lar ac­tion.

“If we are all op­er­at­ing out­side the arm of the law, why tar­get one and not the oth­ers? What makes one op­er­a­tor dif­fer­ent from an­oth­er?” he asked.

Tenia al­so raised con­cerns about li­cens­ing in­con­sis­ten­cies, not­ing that Stud­ley Park in To­ba­go was re­cent­ly grant­ed an ex­port li­cence but does not ap­pear on the Min­istry of En­er­gy’s web­site as hav­ing a pro­cess­ing li­cence.

“It’s per­plex­ing,” he said. “You can’t is­sue a li­cence to ex­port ma­te­r­i­al with­out first grant­i­ng a li­cence to process it. That’s putting the cart be­fore the horse.”

De­spite the mount­ing frus­tra­tion, Tenia said his group re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment and law en­force­ment to clean up the sec­tor and mod­ernise its sys­tems.

“Il­le­gal min­ing is not be­ing done by choice,” he said. “It’s be­ing done be­cause op­er­a­tors are trapped in a bro­ken sys­tem. This is 2025, not 1925. We need a trans­par­ent, dig­i­tal process that al­lows re­al-time track­ing of ap­pli­ca­tions.”

En­er­gy Min­is­ter ques­tions group’s le­git­i­ma­cy

Tenia said TTA­PA has sent two let­ters to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal but has re­ceived no re­ply. He is call­ing for an ur­gent meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Dr Mooni­lal.

“We are ask­ing for part­ner­ship, not per­se­cu­tion,” Tenia said. “Let’s fix this to­geth­er so we can build the coun­try, not break it.”

The Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries (MEEI) has firm­ly re­ject­ed the group’s claims that no com­pa­ny has been able to se­cure a pro­cess­ing li­cence for min­er­als. De­scrib­ing the al­le­ga­tions as “false”, the min­istry em­pha­sised that it has grant­ed nu­mer­ous pro­cess­ing li­cences over the past sev­er­al years.

Dr Mooni­lal con­firmed re­ceipt of TTA­PA’s let­ter dat­ed Oc­to­ber 28. How­ev­er, the min­istry not­ed that it is not yet aware of the group’s es­tab­lish­ment or fa­mil­iar with its ac­tiv­i­ties.

The min­istry al­so reaf­firmed its long­stand­ing en­gage­ment with the Quar­ry As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (QATT), the recog­nised trade group for the sec­tor, hav­ing met con­sis­tent­ly with its ex­ec­u­tives over the past 25 years.

MEEI is now con­duct­ing due dili­gence to con­firm the bona fides of TTA­PA. Dr Mooni­lal as­sured that he re­mains open to meet­ing any cit­i­zen or le­git­i­mate group on mat­ters with­in his port­fo­lio.

JCC head warns shut­downs could ham­per projects

Pres­i­dent of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC) Fazir Khan said the re­ports of planned shut­downs of quar­ries could have se­ri­ous im­pacts on con­trac­tors and de­vel­op­ment projects across the coun­try.

Khan told Guardian Me­dia that, while he has on­ly seen me­dia re­ports about the planned shut­downs, the full ac­cu­ra­cy of the re­ports re­mains un­clear.

He said, how­ev­er, as an in­dus­try prac­ti­tion­er, he is fa­mil­iar with re­cur­ring com­plaints from con­trac­tors about the en­force­ment of sourc­ing ma­te­ri­als ex­clu­sive­ly from li­censed quar­ries.

He added, “There are many com­plaints from con­trac­tors when we try to en­force the ma­te­r­i­al sup­ply to be from a li­censed quar­ry. These com­plaints have been com­ing up re­peat­ed­ly.”

Khan stressed the ur­gency of re­solv­ing any gen­uine is­sues swift­ly. “If it is in fact an is­sue, then it needs to be reg­u­larised very quick­ly be­cause it will stymie all de­vel­op­ment projects,” he said.

What the act says

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 12(1) of the Min­er­als Act Chap­ter 61:03, “No per­son shall ex­plore for mine, process or im­port or ex­port min­er­als ex­cept un­der the au­thor­i­ty of a li­cence is­sued un­der this act.”

Ac­cord­ing to Sec­tion 45(1) of the act, “A per­son who ex­plores for, or mines, process­es, im­ports or ex­ports any ma­te­r­i­al with­out a li­cense is­sued un­der this Act; or mines in an area that is not a min­ing zone com­mits an of­fence and shall, on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion, be li­able to a fine of $500,000 and 5 years im­pris­on­ment, and in the case of a sub­se­quent con­vic­tion for such of­fence, shall be li­able to a fine of $700,000 and 7 years im­pris­on­ment.”