SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA) will join with the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice on No­vem­ber 6 in a mo­tor­cade from the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, to protest is­sues fac­ing cit­i­zens in T&T.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day at Sig­na­ture Hall in Ch­agua­nas, TTSI­DA pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said the mo­tor­cade will al­so high­light is­sues fac­ing scrap iron deal­ers in T&T.

“This ral­ly is about that and so much more ... peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing and can’t get food, you get­ting raped, you can’t get drugs, a lot of things tak­ing place in the coun­try, it does al­ways take peo­ple from nowhere or not a thing at all to ap­pear and do some­thing,” Fer­gu­son said.

He said the as­so­ci­a­tion has tried in vain to get a meet­ing with the man­age­ment of state-owned Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed so that scrap iron deal­ers could ac­cess the ma­te­r­i­al from the com­pa­ny to sell, adding the TTSI­DA has been ig­nored for months. Fer­gu­son said Her­itage is not the on­ly state en­ti­ty ig­nor­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion as its mem­bers strug­gle to earn a liv­ing.

“And it’s not Petrotrin alone, we tried to get meet­ings for the sug­ar mill, no meet­ing, we tried for a meet­ing with T&TEC, con­cern­ing Pow­er­gen...noth­ing. We try all how for months and you still see what is go­ing on now with the ma­te­r­i­al that they are cut­ting down and go­ing with it,” he said.

Fer­gu­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so been lob­by­ing for per­mis­sion to re­move derelict ves­sels from T&T’s wa­ters but their re­quests were al­so be­ing ig­nored.

“We plan to move all the ships that are sink­ing around the coun­try, we plan to do it for free. You want to put out a bid, for some­body to move all these ma­te­r­i­al, all these ships, and all we are ask­ing for is to just give us as­sis­tance by us­ing some of the ar­eas that we can use to move these ships from the wa­ters. But you know what they are go­ing to do? I am telling you. by the next week or two weeks, they want to put out a bid but I think this will let them know that they have peo­ple in their or­gan­i­sa­tion that tells us too,” Fer­gu­son said.

He said while the ral­ly is a new type of ac­tion for the as­so­ci­a­tion, they did not take the de­ci­sion light­ly and it has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics. He said he has not called out his mem­bers to block roads in protest be­cause he does not sub­scribe to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

How­ev­er, he sent out a mes­sage to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, call­ing on him to heed the cry of scrap iron deal­ers.

“I want to ask the Prime Min­is­ter, some of these peo­ple, I don’t think you know what is go­ing on. I think you need to lis­ten now, lis­ten to our com­plaints, lis­ten to let me tell you some­thing: our or­gan­i­sa­tion is one mov­ing for progress for Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are not Chi­nese, not Syr­i­ans, the oth­er set of groups in Trinidad...be­cause we are not these peo­ple, no­body tak­ing us on,” he asked.

Fer­gu­son said in coun­tries around the world, change comes when groups unite to high­light is­sues.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah joined Fer­gu­son at the con­fer­ence, say­ing the par­ty will part­ner with them on No­vem­ber 6. Ab­du­lah said in the com­ing days, he ex­pects trade unions and women’s or­gan­i­sa­tions to join them. He said in past meet­ings with the TTSI­DA, both groups re­alised the need for a mech­a­nism that would al­low peo­ple to ex­press their con­cerns.

“Out of these con­ver­sa­tions was the pro­pos­al to have the ‘Dri­ve for Progress’ and if you lis­ten very care­ful­ly to that theme, it is some­thing very pos­i­tive that we want to dri­ve to­wards progress for Trinidad and To­ba­go as a coun­try as a whole but al­so for all cit­i­zens, not just a few but for the many, for those who are be­ing dis­crim­i­nat­ed against, those who are un­der pres­sure in T&T,” Ab­du­lah said.

He said the mo­tor­cade will al­low that ex­pres­sion in a safe, le­gal way, with­out any breach fo the Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions.

“Whether it is about the high and ris­ing food prices, which no end is in sight, the is­sue of un­em­ploy­ment, the strug­gle for jobs, the fact that there are many peo­ple who just can’t sur­vive from pay­day to pay­day in this land, sin­gle par­ents, per­sons who are suf­fer­ing from is­sues of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and oth­er forms of abuse, all of these is­sues af­fect cit­i­zens and we think it can bring peo­ple to­geth­er in a com­mon cause to dri­ve for progress,” Ab­du­lah said.

He said both groups hope the mo­tor­cade can in­spire pos­i­tive change in T&T.