The Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion wants the Gov­ern­ment to give mem­bers loans to help them re­open the scrap iron in­dus­try.

The ex­port of scrap met­al has been banned for six months be­cause of an in­crease in the theft of cop­per wires and scrap met­al from state and pri­vate prop­er­ties na­tion­wide.

Yes­ter­day, as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son de­liv­ered rec­om­men­da­tions to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice af­ter a re­quest was made for the as­so­ci­a­tion to do so.

How­ev­er, Fer­gu­son said the on­ly up­dat­ed rec­om­men­da­tion for the Gov­ern­ment was to as­sist the in­dus­try with loans, sim­i­lar to what was done dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

Dur­ing the height of COVID-19, there was the SME Stim­u­lus Loan Fa­cil­i­ty, a gov­ern­ment-spon­sored loan pro­gramme to help mi­cro, small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es im­pact­ed by the pan­dem­ic.

“We are rec­om­mend­ing for the Gov­ern­ment to give us some loans so that we can be able to help our mem­bers, so they’re able to open back up be­cause when you shut down for a lit­tle while, our mem­bers have to close down. Some of them shut down in such way that don’t know how they will be open­ing back based on how much mon­ey they will be ow­ing.”

Fer­gu­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion asked for $10 mil­lion to as­sist mem­bers.

He al­so blamed some of the in­ci­dents of crime on the clo­sure of the scrap iron in­dus­try.

“We help peo­ple who come out of jail and we do help peo­ple who can’t read or can write to able to earn a dol­lar in an hon­est way. We tell them all of that and when you take away or strength to help these peo­ple, there is nowhere else for them to turn be­cause they can’t go turn to Tom, Dick and Har­ry for help.”

In Au­gust, the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs es­tab­lished the Scrap Met­al In­dus­try Reg­u­la­tion Ad-Hoc Com­mit­tee.

The com­mit­tee has been man­dat­ed to come up with draft leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing the scrap iron in­dus­try with­in a three-month pe­ri­od.

On Au­gust 15, the AG an­nounced that Gov­ern­ment had banned the ex­port of scrap iron and met­als for six months.

The ban is sched­uled to end in Feb­ru­ary 2023, al­though the AG is hop­ing to end it be­fore this time.