The Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (SI­DA) is aim­ing for a sig­nif­i­cant turnout for the As­so­ci­a­tion’s planned mo­tor­cade from South to North on Wednes­day to protest Gov­ern­ment’s six-month ban on scrap met­al ex­ports.

Al­ready the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress said it would be part of the mo­tor­cade. This was con­firmed by the UNC’s David Nakhid who said, “We’re in every le­git­i­mate protest against this un­car­ing Row­ley-led Gov­ern­ment....in­clud­ing this one.”

The trade union move­ment is al­so ex­pect­ed to sup­port.

The Gov­ern­ment stat­ed the shut­down was nec­es­sary fol­low­ing con­tin­u­ous van­dal­ism of state as­sets dam­ag­ing wa­ter and ca­ble lines, af­fect­ing cit­i­zens and caus­ing over $22 mil­lion in re­pairs. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said ma­li­cious at­tacks are part of a larg­er plot which may need the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism act to pros­e­cute and the ban was need­ed to end crim­i­nal en­ter­prise where mil­lions in stolen as­sets are be­ing sold for scrap. Law is be­ing draft­ed to reg­u­late the sec­tor.

Yes­ter­day Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion ap­plied for po­lice per­mis­sion for the mo­tor­cade last week.

“We’re hop­ing to re­ceive ap­proval be­tween now and Tues­day; par­tic­u­lar­ly since the ef­fort brings uni­ty to the poor and needy, be­cause for too long—gov­ern­ments come, gov­ern­ments go—they’ve been for­got­ten,” Fer­gu­son added.

The mo­tor­cade is sched­uled to start at 9 am from the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Mara­bel­la, head­ing north on the Solomon Ho­choy High­way, then it is planned to pro­ceed to the East­ern Main Road, in­to Port-of-Spain, along Wright­son Road in­to Colville Street and to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

Fer­gu­son as­sured it won’t ham­per high­way traf­fic in­to the cap­i­tal city as it would be “af­ter” the usu­al high traf­fic pe­ri­od.

Fer­gu­son said there are 10,000 to 20,000 peo­ple in the sec­tor, those work­ing at the four land­fills —Beetham, Clax­ton Bay, Point Fortin, Ari­ma—plus oth­ers from To­co, Diego Mar­tin, Pe­tit Val­ley, Port-of-Spain, Mor­vant, Pe­nal, Debe.

“Peo­ple will par­tic­i­pate as this clo­sure threat­ens the abil­i­ty to feed their fam­i­lies.”

Maxi-taxis are al­so be­ing or­gan­ised, said Fer­gu­son as peo­ple liv­ing along the route are ex­pect­ed to join as the mo­tor­cade pass­es.

Fer­gu­son’s al­so ex­pect­ing sup­port from the trade union move­ment.

He al­so said the le­gal ac­tion mount­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tion is tak­ing shape.

“Lawyers are on it al­ready. We’d like the sec­tor re­opened this week.”

Mean­while, the UNC’s David Nakhis de­scribed the ban as fool­ish say­ing it would put the poor/work­ing class peo­ple in that in­dus­try on the bread­line.

“If there’s cor­rup­tion in the scrap iron in­dus­try, let them (Gov­ern­ment) man­age it! Why are you there as a Gov­ern­ment? You throw your hands up and say you ban­ning every­thing. We have prob­lems in health, sports—why you don’t shut that down too!”

“You’ve ad­mit­ted your in­abil­i­ty to find some kind of al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment for peo­ple if you’re go­ing to shut down. So you’re throw­ing work­ing-class fam­i­lies to the wolves, and al­so throw­ing the pop­u­la­tion to the wolves, as some of those peo­ple said they’re gonna turn to crime to feed their fam­i­lies,” Nakhid added.

Nakhid claimed many vi­able busi­ness­es are re­port­ed­ly in­volved in that in­dus­try make the most prof­it and won’t suf­fer, “So Gov­ern­ment picked the low ly­ing fruit— poor and work­ing class.”