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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Scrap iron dealers beg PM Rowley:Don’t shut down industry

by

981 days ago
20220708
President of the Scrap Dealers Association of Trinidad and Tobago Allan Ferguson

President of the Scrap Dealers Association of Trinidad and Tobago Allan Ferguson

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Mak­ing a case for the poor, pres­i­dent of the Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA), Al­lan Fer­gu­son, has plead­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley not to shut down the in­dus­try, as it will put thou­sands of peo­ple on wel­fare.


At a me­dia con­fer­ence in re­sponse to Row­ley’s state­ments at a post-Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day that Gov­ern­ment would con­sid­er ban­ning the mar­ket­ing of scrap met­al for a pe­ri­od, Fer­gu­son said the TTSI­DA wants to work with At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour to find so­lu­tions. 


Fer­gu­son was con­fi­dent the par­ties could find an­swers to brazen theft and van­dal­ism of State in­fra­struc­ture by some deal­ers, as he said there were on­ly about eight scrap yards that ex­port cop­per.
 One pro­pos­al to deal with ex­port­ing stolen cop­per was to have a po­lice or Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion of­fi­cer present when load­ing ship­ping con­tain­ers. This would en­sure what en­ters the con­tain­ers are the par­tic­u­lars of ex­port doc­u­ments.


“I am beg­ging you, please, Mr Prime Min­is­ter, hear our cry. Hear our plea that this in­dus­try em­ploys thou­sands of poor peo­ple. Every sin­gle day peo­ple eat food out of this in­dus­try. It is the last in­dus­try that poor peo­ple have in this coun­try, and I know you care about poor peo­ple,” Fer­gu­son said.


On Thurs­day, Row­ley said some peo­ple did not care who they harmed while mak­ing a liv­ing by de­stroy­ing in­fra­struc­ture and mar­ket­ing stolen met­al ma­te­ri­als. He said as a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, he has asked Ar­mour to con­sid­er whether the Gov­ern­ment should pre­vent the mar­ket­ing of scrap met­als for a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od.


But Fer­gu­son yes­ter­day said the TTSI­DA tried to pre­vent the Gov­ern­ment from reach­ing this po­si­tion. He said the TTSI­DA was proac­tive in reach­ing out to stake­hold­ers to find so­lu­tions.

It wrote to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob on Feb­ru­ary 23, seek­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the thefts of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) ca­bles.

The TTSI­DA al­so wrote to TSTT CEO Lisa Agard on Feb­ru­ary 8, re­quest­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the thefts and make rec­om­men­da­tions.

Fer­gu­son said Ja­cob and Agard ac­ced­ed to the meet­ing. The TTSI­DA then wrote the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, ask­ing them to im­ple­ment a tem­po­rary ban on the ex­port of used cop­per. He sug­gest­ed a three-month ban.


Fer­gu­son said not all deal­ers en­gage in steal­ing TSTT ca­bles and oth­er pub­lic in­fra­struc­ture. He said as TTSI­DA pres­i­dent, he met with mem­bers around the coun­try and felt sure on­ly a hand­ful en­gaged in the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty. He said he would not fight Row­ley, as he re­spects him and agrees the in­dus­try need­ed re­form.

How­ev­er, he said he can­not agree to a shut­down of the in­dus­try that helps put food on the ta­ble of thou­sands of peo­ple.

He said land­fills at Beetham, Ari­ma, Clax­ton Bay and Point Fortin were refuges for peo­ple strug­gling to make ends meet, as they scav­enge scrap met­al to sell in or­der to have a meal.


“I would nev­er agree on that be­cause in Trinidad & To­ba­go, thou­sands and thou­sands of peo­ple live off this in­dus­try. This in­dus­try helps the Gov­ern­ment be­cause most peo­ple, if they do not come and do some­thing in this in­dus­try, they would have to ap­ply for pub­lic as­sis­tance.”


Fer­gu­son said from 2019 to now, the scrap met­al in­dus­try had in­creased ex­port by 47 per cent. He said it fills the most con­tain­ers at ports in Port-of-Spain and Point Lisas every month. 
 “That is what I am about, to make this in­dus­try bring in for­eign ex­change. This is what we do, you know, bring in for­eign ex­change in­to Trinidad & To­ba­go, and we help with the em­ploy­ment. We help with a lot of em­ploy­ment in Trinidad & To­ba­go, so we need to stay on that course.”


Fer­gu­son said shut­ting down the in­dus­try would al­so af­fect sev­er­al ship­ping and trans­port com­pa­nies and scrap yards. He be­lieves crime would wors­en if more peo­ple fall in­to un­em­ploy­ment.


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