It appears that there is no end to the protracted encounters between Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) and the twin-island Republic’s assertive Trinidad and Tobago Scrap Iron Dealers Association (TTSIDA), the most recent engagement between the two centering on what appears likely to be significant changes to the operational behaviour of the scrap industry itself.
In recent times, the crisis in the industry, in Trinidad as well as in other countries in the region, including Guyana, has led to extensive plunder of critical infrastructural edifices and caused the authorities to rollout a brand new Scrap Metal Act, 2022, and an attendant Scrap Metal Regulations, 2023. Engagements between government officials and sector representatives in T&T would appear to have taken on a much more structured profile than that which had obtained here some years ago between a government that sought to draw a line in the sand after coming under pressure from prominent local agencies whose operations were being undermined by the consistency of metal thieves.
T&T’s new Scrap Metal Act is being rolled out at this time and the importance of the occurrence is reflected in the presence of a plethora of government officials and sector representatives at the talks. The situation in Port of Spain, however, would appear to be a matter of a much greater level of urgency where the scrap metal brouhaha had been characterized by a considerable degree of angst and confrontation with the government here seemingly considering the complete outlawing of the sector after the thieves began to target the ‘heavy hitters’ in both the public and private sectors, not least the Guyana Water Authority and the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Company. (GTT).
On the surface at least, there appears to be a great deal more structure and seriousness to the engagements between the political administration in Port of Spain and the ‘movers and shakers’ in the scrap metal trade than what had obtained between government and scrap metal dealers here in Guyana. One local dealer earlier this week told the Stabroek Business that some of the differences between the local scrap metal organization and the government arose “after the government deliberately tried to criminalize that sector.” Official reluctance to endorse the legitimacy of the scrap metal trade here had led to ‘raids’ on scrap vendors that included the stopping and searching of trucks suspected of being involved in smuggling illegally acquired metal across the border and into Suriname.
In February this year, in a move deemed to be an official acknowledgement of the levels of employment and earnings accruing to the country from the metal trade, Trinidad and Tobago rolled out its Scrap Metal Act, which initiative, along with other measures, allowed Scrap Metal Dealers to resume operations, including its vital export activity which had been put on hold. Government and scrap metal dealers in Guyana have long been at odds over the scrap metal trade with lobbyists on both sides making their respective cases for and against the trade.
On April 1, 2021, the government, following a meeting with scrap metal dealers, yielded to a relentless lobby, giving its assent to the re-opening of the scrap metal trade following which came as an announcement from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to the effect that significant progress had been made to fully operationalize the new regime for scrap metal. On the back of this announcement came the disclosure that the authorities in Georgetown had agreed to collaborate with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) in order to strengthen the regulations of the industry and to upgrade enforcement pursuits as required under the new Act.
