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.
