Sto­ry by SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s largest man­u­fac­ture of clay con­struc­tion blocks, ABEL, re­sumed op­er­a­tions on Thurs­day, in­clud­ing the ship­ping of blocks to To­ba­go.

Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er at ABEL, Christo­pher Pen­jil­ia, said the com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly has sev­en mil­lion blocks in stock, which should last about three months.

He told Guardian Me­dia that pro­duc­tion is on­go­ing with a re­duced work­force, which would pro­duce enough blocks to meet mar­ket de­mand.  Pen­jil­ia said trucks are sched­uled to col­lect blocks at the Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, fac­to­ry in or­der to avoid any con­ges­tion and pro­mote so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

“We have been bom­bard­ed with re­quests for blocks over the past six weeks,” he told Guardian Me­dia. “We sent two loads of blocks to To­ba­go on Thurs­day. Al­so, our ex­ports to Grena­da and Guyana should re-com­mence next week.”

Mean­while, hard­ware own­ers and con­trac­tors are hap­py that they can ob­tain sup­plies, once more.

Kevin Ram­chan, hard­ware own­er and trans­port con­trac­tor was at ABEL ear­ly on Thurs­day to col­lect a load of blocks. 

“Cus­tomers had paid in ad­vance for blocks and were ea­ger to get sup­plies,” he said.

Ram­cha­ran ob­served that re­leas­ing ce­ment sup­plies ear­li­er with­out mak­ing blocks and bricks avail­able was in­con­ve­nient.

“It was un­fair to cus­tomers,” he said. “Ce­ment is avail­able, and we can’t get blocks. It’s on­ly now we could get blocks.”

Ram­cha­ran said he has paid al­ready for 64,000 blocks, which he hopes to col­lect and de­liv­er this week.