The Gov­ern­ment has banned the ex­por­ta­tion of old iron and scrap iron for six months in an ef­fort to crack down on the il­le­gal har­vest­ing of met­als from pub­lic and pri­vate in­fra­struc­ture.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour told a news con­fer­ence Mon­day that the Cab­i­net agreed on Thurs­day to a rec­om­men­da­tion from a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee for this to be done and that it took ef­fect from Fri­day, Au­gust 12.

It will run un­til Feb­ru­ary 23, 2023 but the AG will go back to Cab­i­net in three months with a re­view of the leg­is­la­tion to see if it can ex­pire then, in light of the fact that sev­er­al le­git­i­mate ex­porters will al­so be af­fect­ed.

Dur­ing the ban, the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try will re­view ap­pli­ca­tions for li­cens­es for ex­port but will be first re­viewed by the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee.

The Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed in Ju­ly and in­volved Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, Min­is­ter of Trade and In­dus­try Paula Gopee-Scoon and the AG.

It met with in­dus­try stake­hold­ers be­fore re­port­ing to Cab­i­net.