At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, says un­der his in­struc­tions, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs has es­tab­lished the Scrap Met­al In­dus­try Reg­u­la­tion Ad-Hoc Com­mit­tee.

And the new com­mit­tee has since been man­dat­ed to come up with draft leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing the scrap iron in­dus­try with­in the next three months. On Au­gust 15, the AG an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment had banned the ex­port of scrap iron and met­als for six months. The ban is sched­uled to end in Feb­ru­ary, 2023, al­though the AG was hop­ing to end it be­fore this time.

A state­ment from the AG yes­ter­day said the first meet­ing of the com­mit­tee was held yes­ter­day with its mem­bers, com­pris­ing of key of­fi­cers from the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs, Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Fi­nance, Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force.

The state­ment said the com­mit­tee is tasked with sup­port­ing the Law Re­form Com­mis­sion’s as­sign­ment to ag­gres­sive­ly re­vamp the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion to con­sid­er and en­able:

An en­force­able leg­isla­tive and li­cens­ing regime;

The main­te­nance of a pub­lic ac­cess reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem via web­site

The abil­i­ty of law en­force­ment, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion to in­spect, among oth­er places the col­lec­tion sites

The pro­vi­sion of reg­u­la­to­ry mak­ing pow­er in the sub­stan­tive law; and

Any oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions which should be in­clud­ed in or­der to in­ter­dict the il­le­gal­i­ties with­in the in­dus­try by ur­gent leg­isla­tive and reg­u­la­to­ry re­form.

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al added that the com­mit­tee is man­dat­ed to ad­here to strict time­lines in or­der to present draft leg­is­la­tion with­in the next three months and to in­clude stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion dur­ing its de­lib­er­a­tions.

Scrap iron deal­ers and work­ers have been stag­ing protests across the coun­try since the ban was an­nounced.