There is absolutely no way that the authorities could have continued to countenance the relentless pillaging of the installations of the utility companies by thieves targeting metal infrastructure for vandalizing in order to make a living out of selling the metal. So that when GTT, particularly, began, several years ago, to suffer repeated vandalism of its installations and theft of large quantities of expensive copper cable the government was forced to act.
The problem, of course, is that the far-flung installations of the utility companies continue to render them virtually impossible to police effectively, a circumstance that enabled the thieves to operate with impunity and all too often without fear of detection.
It was as much the influential lobby of the telephone company as the outraged responses of consumers to loss of telephone service resulting from vandalized installations that caused the previous administration to take action, periodically closing down parts of the scrap metal trade and targeting some of the vandals for punishment. What occurred, simultaneously, was a spate of graphic media reporting that did two things. It provided a vivid account of what one might call the seamy side of the sector as reflected in the cutting down and carting off of large quantities of costly copper cable, the pilfering of manhole covers and other such destabilizing indiscretions.
There was another development too. Linkages, some real some contrived, came to be established between legitimate scrap metal dealers and metal thieves. Once the legitimate trade became linked to metal theft it created room for government to read a riot act across the board, which is exactly what it did.
It took the legitimate trade some time to respond though it did, eventually, making the point that it was wrong for legitimate businesses to be punished for the indiscretions of the metal thieves. It was right, of course, but no one, not least the government was about to allow the industry free reign in circumstances where its credentials had come under intense scrutiny and in the wake of an increasingly assertive lobby from the all-important service providers in the telecommunications, electricity and water sectors. The reality is that the scrap metal industry became a victim of the nature of the trade.
The scrap metal industry may not possess the same economic clout as the gold-mining industry, for example. But it has to be said that there are honest businessmen among its ranks and hundreds, perhaps thousands of families depend on the trade so that at some point in time a decision has to be made about the future of the industry. The sooner, the better.
The latest we have been told by the Ministry of Business under whose purview the sector falls is that the industry will eventually be re-opened but under a new set of rules. Up to earlier this week the ministry could not say when the government would be in a position to re-open the industry.
There are two issues here. The first one has to do with the responsibility of the government to prevent metal thieves from destroying vital infrastructure in their hunt for metals. The second is the responsibility of the authorities to facilitate the growth of a legitimate industry.
The other point to be made, of course, is that it is decidedly not in the interest of the legitimate businesses comprising the scrap metal trade that the prevailing stalemate goes on forever.
