OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion will this week­end stage a mo­tor­cade from the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade and through Port-of-Spain to protest the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed plans to shut down the scrap in­dus­try for six months.

Last year, the as­so­ci­a­tion held a sim­i­lar mo­tor­cade to protest is­sues fac­ing cit­i­zens in T&T.

Speak­ing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at Jen­ny’s on the Boule­vard on Mon­day, pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said, “We will let the Gov­ern­ment know that this in­dus­try em­ploys a lot of peo­ple. So, this Sat­ur­day, I want you to know we will have a ral­ly where we will in­vite all the trade union move­ment and all the right-think­ing peo­ple to save our in­dus­try. I beg you all to come with us, that is on­ly if the Gov­ern­ment does not change its po­si­tion.”

The move by the Gov­ern­ment comes af­ter the con­tin­ued theft of cop­per lines and of in­fra­struc­ture at en­ti­ties like WASA, TSTT and T&TEC, which has dis­rupt­ed ser­vices across the coun­try.

Fer­gu­son said if the de­ci­sion is tak­en to shut down the in­dus­try there will be grave con­se­quences, as the sec­tor pro­vides food for the low­est in­come brack­et. He fears if this hap­pens, peo­ple may turn to crime.

Fer­gu­son said in­stead of the pro­posed six-month shut­down of the in­dus­try, the as­so­ci­a­tion wants the Gov­ern­ment to stop the ex­port of cop­per for a few months.

“The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has failed us. He want­ed to get names of per­sons do­ing the il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty and I told him that we worked with oth­er com­mis­sion­ers to get rid of the past prob­lems we had. I am say­ing that you fail this or­gan­i­sa­tion and I will tell you why when you ask for a meet­ing and we sent let­ters up­on let­ters to help us and work with us and no help is com­ing for­ward,” he said.

Fer­gu­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion was thus left with no choice but to launch its own hot­line for mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port cop­per and met­al thefts.

“To­day (Mon­day), we are launch­ing our hot­line and you can call us 24 hours and if the po­lice do not want to hear when we are call­ing and they don’t an­swer, we will ex­pose them and the area and we will give out the num­ber for the hot­line.”

The as­so­ci­a­tion head al­so chid­ed Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds for sup­port­ing the shut­down of the in­dus­try.

“Mr Hinds, you sit down in Cab­i­net and many per­sons in your con­stituen­cy earn a lot of mon­ey from the scrap iron in­dus­try and you sat down and agree with them to shut down the in­dus­try for six months and you don’t want me to say any­thing, and I must keep my mouth shut? But let me tell you some­thing, I am cham­pi­oning for the poor.”

Last Fri­day, Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob an­nounced that the TTPS was of­fer­ing a $100,000 re­ward for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of peo­ple be­hind the acts of theft and van­dal­ism that have been tak­ing place at es­sen­tial util­i­ty lo­ca­tions.