The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) has boast­ed that its work to im­prove the in­dus­try is be­gin­ning to bear fruit.

Ear­li­er this month, the as­so­ci­a­tion met with a Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee set up by the Prime Min­is­ter to de­vel­op a pol­i­cy for the in­dus­try.

Dr Kei­th Row­ley had ex­pressed deep con­cern over the in­creas­ing num­ber of theft of state as­sets, in­clud­ing TSTT ca­bles, wa­ter fit­tings and man­hole cov­ers.

But at a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion said while it is work­ing with the Gov­ern­ment, it has start­ed its own work to help al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion.

TTSI­DA pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said he is see­ing some im­prove­ment al­ready.

“Whilst we wait­ing on them, we said to them that we will go out to try to in­form our mem­bers what to do and what not to do and it is work­ing good. We see that all peo­ple from all over Trinidad com­ing and reg­is­ter­ing with us, the peo­ple who do the col­lect­ing, they com­ing and work­ing with us and reg­is­ter­ing with us, so it is go­ing good,” he said.

Notwith­stand­ing the pos­i­tive out­look, Fer­gu­son said there were “dis­trac­tors” who are hell-bent on see­ing the in­dus­try shut down.

How­ev­er, he promised that this would not hap­pen un­der his watch.

He did ad­mit again, though, that there are scrap iron deal­ers who are pur­chas­ing the stolen State as­sets and this is caus­ing the en­tire in­dus­try to be paint­ed in a bad light.

He re­mind­ed that a short-term pro­pos­al to end the theft had been sent to the Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee for its con­sid­er­a­tion.

Among the plans for the van col­lec­tors are that they are reg­is­tered and TTSI­DA-ap­proved, iden­ti­fi­able by TTSI­DA li­cence stick­ers and must present a com­plet­ed van col­lec­tor’s form for all met­als when sell­ing to deal­ers.

For deal­ers, some of what the as­so­ci­a­tion is propos­ing are that all TTSI­DA scrap-iron deal­ers be reg­is­tered, they must erect pub­lic and vis­i­ble busi­ness signs bear­ing their deal­er reg­is­tra­tion num­bers and they will be re­quired to fill out col­lec­tion forms, which will in­clude the van col­lec­tors they pur­chased from, and if a theft is de­tect­ed, all reg­is­tered TTSI­DA deal­ers must con­tact the near­est po­lice sta­tion, sur­ren­der the goods to the au­thor­i­ty and fur­nish the po­lice with all de­tails to the van col­lec­tor.

On­ly on Thurs­day, TSTT re­vealed that for the last six months alone, 306 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and charged for steal­ing its ca­bles.