The Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (SI­DA) is call­ing for an ur­gent meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs to dis­cuss its pro­pos­al to pur­chase old met­al from what was Petrotrin.

The As­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son re­vealed mem­bers sub­mit­ted a bid to Petrotrin now Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and in­vest­ed heav­i­ly in the pro­pos­al for the scrap met­als af­ter the clo­sure of Petrotrin.

Fer­gu­son, dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence held on Wednes­day at Sig­na­ture Hall in Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas claimed that fol­low­ing a dis­cus­sion with the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try, the As­so­ci­a­tion is be­ing side­lined and bur­dened with the ten­der process.

"We are ask­ing now the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, Stu­art Young, to hear our cry be­cause it still have more ma­te­ri­als. They can­not move out all that ma­te­r­i­al right away. We still have the op­por­tu­ni­ty for Trinidad to make mon­ey," Fer­gu­son said.

"Please hear us. Have a meet­ing with us it is ur­gent to have a meet­ing with us to hear what we have to of­fer for Trinidad. We are of­fer­ing our coun­try em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change," he added.

Fer­gu­son said in dis­pos­ing of the ob­so­lete as­sets at the com­pa­ny, they es­ti­mate to gen­er­ate a rev­enue of US$300 mil­lion.

"We had was to go and get for­eign in­vestors to as­sist us in ap­proach­ing Petrotrin. From since last year we bid."

He added, "The amount of em­ploy­ment we would have had for our or­gan­i­sa­tion to give to the peo­ple of Trinidad...I'm say­ing we are ask­ing Petrotrin to­day what it is go­ing on with the bid that we bid since last year? Eleven months now and it's like Petrotrin take my two hands and tie it up and al­low­ing oth­er peo­ple to be box­ing me. They telling us we can't do noth­ing be­cause they have all pow­er they have all the lawyers to write nice things but what I can tell them is that God don't sleep," he added.

Fer­gu­son re­it­er­at­ed that the scrap met­al was need­ed in or­der for the in­dus­try to sur­vive.

On Sep­tem­ber 26 2020 the Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (Her­itage) stat­ed that it was abid­ing by the rules on the sale of its ob­so­lete as­sets and will not be pres­sured to do oth­er­wise.

Her­itage then said, a ten­der process was be­ing fol­lowed which in­vit­ed bids from a wide-cross sec­tion of in­ter­est­ed par­ties and not­ed that as a whol­ly-owned state en­ter­prise, Her­itage is guid­ed by the prin­ci­ples of the State En­ter­prise Per­for­mance Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al (SEP­MM) and Her­itage’s as­so­ci­at­ed process­es, pro­ce­dures, and guide­lines.

It al­so not­ed then that the calls and claims made by the TT Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) to en­ter in­to a “sole-se­lect” ap­proach will not hap­pen.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment af­ter the As­so­ci­a­tion's news con­fer­ence, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Stu­art Young said: "This is a mat­ter for Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed (TPHL) as the hold­ing com­pa­ny of Petrotrin. The As­so­ci­a­tion can write to TPHL and the Min­istry out­lin­ing its po­si­tion and it will be ad­dressed."