Gail Alexan­der

All of a sud­den, the scrap iron in­dus­try has de­cid­ed to phys­i­cal­ly shut down T&T, ac­cord­ing to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who’s al­so said peo­ple went berserk in try­ing to make mon­ey out of the scrap busi­ness.

Speak­ing at Tues­day’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Bel­mont, Row­ley al­so an­nounced that a road re­pair com­pa­ny is be­ing es­tab­lished to fix roads which have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed con­sid­er­ably.

Row­ley al­so de­tailed busi­ness trips he’s go­ing on from Sep­tem­ber 2.

Ac­cus­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of join­ing any­one who has a grouse, he said, “All of a sud­den, the scrap iron in­dus­try de­cid­ed to phys­i­cal­ly shut down T&T... we were ‘ex­port­ing’ steel in this big in­dus­try to the point where our very ex­is­tence was be­ing threat­ened. It be­came a na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.”

He cit­ed ca­ble cut­ting, fences, man­holes cov­ers, church bell, items at Her­itage, wa­ter lines and theft of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port’s avi­a­tion fu­el bond gate, where a light­ed match could have caused great de­struc­tion. Not­ing that theft of cer­tain steel could af­fect a trans­former and shut T&T down, he added, “What is Gov­ern­ment sup­posed to do? Say you’re mak­ing an hon­est liv­ing - shut T&T down?”

Say­ing po­lice can’t be placed at every TTEC pole or man­hole cov­er, Row­ley who said he had no co­coa in the sun, adding that what has T&T in this sit­u­a­tion is “... not who is the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter or which par­ty’s in of­fice.”

“The re­al prob­lem is fam­i­lies who know fam­i­ly mem­bers are en­gaged in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct and aren’t ap­ply­ing the stan­dards we ex­pect. If you know fam­i­ly mem­bers af­ford­ed them­selves firearms, go out at night and come back with mon­ey when they name not on any pay­roll ... you know you ‘re en­cour­ag­ing mur­der­ers in your ranks, your bed, in your house!” he said.

“There are too many peo­ple who’ve cho­sen crime as a way of life - we have to get away from that! If you know who has the gun and the TTPS doesn’t know - who you pro­tect­ing?”

He asked what is a Prime Min­is­ter’s role if peo­ple took mon­ey from their chil­dren who’d know the par­ent knew they’re in crime.

“The Gov­ern­ment will do what a Gov­ern­ment could do but this is go­ing to be one hel­lu­va long haul as long as you’re do­ing what you’re do­ing - and not do­ing what you should be do­ing.”

He said this is a pe­ri­od of great dif­fi­cul­ty and some­times mis­takes are made. But he said the pol­i­cy of arm­ing a na­tion as a re­sponse to crime has been shown to be a bad pol­i­cy, “be­cause if every­body has a gun, what you end up with is the wild west.”

Road re­pair

com­pa­ny launched

Row­ley said funds for road re­pairs in 2020 and 2021 were spent on pri­or­i­ties dur­ing the pan­dem­ic “to keep you alive” and there was in­suf­fi­cient for re­pairs. Gov­ern­ment is now in a po­si­tion to do bet­ter, he added, “And we are and will do bet­ter ... our roads will not re­main sub­stan­dard for­ev­er.”

Cab­i­net had ap­proved the for­ma­tion of a road re­pair com­pa­ny in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry and this is be­ing op­er­a­tionalised, board mem­bers ap­point­ed and mon­ey will be made avail­able from Fi­nance to mo­bilise re­sources, he said.

Row­ley said the Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum will be an an­nu­al event and the next will be for a longer pe­ri­od and in San Fer­nan­do.

Row­ley al­so warned those march­ing on pub­lic ser­vants’ is­sues the biggest risk they face is if Gov­ern­ment can’t pay its bills and has to re­sort to lenders. He said the IMF - whose first con­di­tion­al­i­ty is to cut pub­lic ser­vices - would love to get its hands on T&T.

The PM said he’s leav­ing T&T on the af­ter­noon of Sep­tem­ber 2 af­ter Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert presents the Spot­light on the Econ­o­my.

The Spot­light event is a cur­tain rais­er to the Bud­get 2023, which is be­ing pre­sent­ed lat­er in Sep­tem­ber.

Row­ley said he’ll go to Switzer­land to talk to and en­cour­age and con­clude busi­ness with Pro­man, T&T’s biggest methanol pro­duc­er. He’ll al­so meet Shell and BP on ne­go­ti­a­tions which are com­ing to an end. He re­turns on Sep­tem­ber 10 and three days lat­er, heads to Wash­ing­ton to meet US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris. Row­ley co-chairs an En­er­gy sub-com­mit­tee ap­point­ed when the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as was held in Ju­ly.