Ot­to Car­ring­ton

The T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion will im­ple­ment mea­sures next week to pre­vent cop­per ca­ble thefts.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ap­point­ment of a sub-com­mit­tee to re­view the in­dus­try af­ter nu­mer­ous re­ports of TSTT cop­per ca­bles be­ing stolen from poles.

Last Wednes­day, Al­lan Fer­gu­son, the as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent, said these mea­sures were de­cid­ed on and en­dorsed by the mem­bers.

He rec­om­mends halt­ing the ex­port of cop­per from Trinidad and To­ba­go for three months. He al­so rec­om­mend­ed that a Cus­toms of­fi­cer be on hand when deal­ers are pack­ing con­tain­ers with cop­per to en­sure that there are no stolen TSTT wires in the con­tain­ers. Al­so, a po­lice of­fi­cer and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the as­so­ci­a­tion will be present as a tem­po­rary mea­sure to help pre­vent what is hap­pen­ing across the coun­try, Fer­gu­son added.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion will be go­ing to all the scrap iron deal­ers’ yards across Trinidad and To­ba­go, mem­bers or no mem­bers.

“And the thing about it is that we are a recog­nised body in the coun­try con­cern­ing scrap. The thing about it is that if you want to be out of the as­so­ci­a­tion and keep do­ing the wrong thing, we will not be en­ter­tained by that, so every­body, it doesn’t mat­ter if you are not a mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion, you have to be able to fol­low the laws,” he said.

Fer­gu­son not­ed that the in­dus­try brings in for­eign ex­change and em­ploy­ment.

“We will start rolling from Tues­day. We are go­ing to make sure that all our mem­bers, even the van guys that come in­to our yards, will have stick­ers so you will know who is bonafide and reg­is­tered as well. We will al­so give them re­ceipt books as well, to have a trace of the ma­te­ri­als and the next thing we are do­ing is to al­low ma­te­ri­als that come in to stay in the yard for sev­en days. This will al­low that if any stolen items are tak­en, they can be re­trieved and those guilty will face the brunt of the law,” Fer­gu­son said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion met with the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee on Wednes­day.

The sub-com­mit­tee was ap­point­ed af­ter PM Row­ley an­nounced the Gov­ern­ment would move to shut down the scrap iron in­dus­try if the bla­tant theft of State in­fra­struc­ture, which al­so in­cludes WASA pipeline fit­tings, does not stop.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds are all on the sub-com­mit­tee.

Fer­gu­son said there will be a spe­cial meet­ing of all deal­ers and col­lec­tors this week­end and for one month, all col­lec­tors and deal­ers can con­tact the TTSI­DA to reg­is­ter and be­come com­pli­ant.