Le­gal ac­tion is in the works by the T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion against the Gov­ern­ment, af­ter a six-month ban on the ex­por­ta­tion of scrap iron took ef­fect last Fri­day (Au­gust 12).

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son again plead­ed with the Gov­ern­ment not to shut down ex­ports for the en­tire pe­ri­od.

He said his as­so­ci­a­tion will con­sid­er le­gal ac­tion if their pleas are not heard.

“We will go to court and as far as the Privy Coun­cil, we have been speak­ing with our lawyers to make sure that once the Gov­ern­ment shuts down the in­dus­try, we are look­ing to go to the court to file an in­junc­tion,” Fer­gu­son said.

He added that his as­so­ci­a­tion was not sit­ting idly but has been do­ing work in prepa­ra­tion for chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion, which was an­nounced by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al yes­ter­day, hours af­ter the as­so­ci­a­tion’s news con­fer­ence.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the shut­down could af­fect fam­i­lies and the coun­try neg­a­tive­ly and can cre­ate a rip­ple ef­fect, es­pe­cial­ly in crime.

“If you shut down this in­dus­try, per­sons in Grena­da and the Caribbean, as many of these peo­ple ply scrap met­al to lo­cal deal­ers in Trinidad and To­ba­go and when they sell us and they get mon­ey, you know what they do with their mon­ey, they pur­chase goods in whole­sale places and buy goods to car­ry back to their re­spec­tive coun­tries. That is what they do. So when this in­dus­try is shut down, it is not just Trinidad and To­ba­go af­fect­ed, it is al­so oth­er coun­tries in the re­gion be­ing af­fect­ed by this,” Fer­gu­son said.

In the last few months, state agen­cies have in­curred mil­lions in loss­es be­cause of in­creas­ing cop­per theft across the coun­try, in par­tic­u­lar at State util­i­ty in­stal­la­tions.

Fer­gu­son yes­ter­day begged Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to have a change of heart re­gard­ing the six-month ban, which comes to an end in Feb­ru­ary 2023.

“All I want to say is that Mr Prime Min­is­ter, I am telling you to re­think your po­si­tion and let your Min­is­ters know that those who have an agen­da have the au­thor­i­ty to stop it. You all have the pow­er be­cause you are in charge and I know you can do it, so please hold on ban­ning the sec­tor,” Fer­gu­son begged.

The Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has tak­en its own steps to reg­u­late the in­dus­try fol­low­ing a meet­ing with a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee. It has con­duct­ed fo­rums to al­low its mem­bers to reg­is­ter and even of­fered to in­spect scrap yards to en­sure stolen items were not on premis­es.

Fer­gu­son said he has tried dif­fer­ent ap­proach­es to pre­vent the shut­ting down of the in­dus­try.

“We have asked the Port and Cus­toms for a meet­ing and noth­ing. I think that they like the crime in the coun­try, they like they love the crime and we are a ma­jor stake­hold­er in the in­dus­try, up to now no one has re­spond­ed and they seem that they don’t care, they don’t care what hap­pens in Trinidad and To­ba­go and what hap­pens in this in­dus­try.”

Fer­gu­son added, “This in­dus­try has the most con­tain­ers that leave the port of this coun­try, is we that send them out of Trinidad and To­ba­go. No re­spect is how I look and how I speak, that is why. Had I been a Chi­nese or a Syr­i­an, I am sure the con­ver­sa­tion would have been dif­fer­ent and just be­cause of who I am and who con­trols the in­dus­try, they don’t like it. Even the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, you can write him many let­ters and talk, and the end re­sult is noth­ing.”

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nal Ar­mour, in an­nounc­ing the ban on ex­ports yes­ter­day, said he was hop­ing to re­verse the ban soon­er than the stip­u­lat­ed time.