00:00Four years after the scrap iron industry faced a complete state-led shutdown resulting from
00:05the theft of copper, the problem is presenting itself again. The booming trade, fueled in part
00:10by the higher prices of copper internationally, stands among the driving factors.
00:15President of the T&T Scrap Iron Dealers Association, Alan Ferguson, says it is driving a sense
00:21of desperation.
00:22Because if you look all over the world, because of the price of copper today, it is a lot
00:29of money. And it seems to be people just doing things to get copper. They don't matter what
00:34they break the law in. And it's the copper theft is increasing all over Trinidad, also
00:41and in Tobago.
00:42It is stripping the country of critical infrastructure, with the fallout being felt directly by state
00:48companies like TSTT and TNTech.
00:51That is one of the biggest problems that we have, because then when you leave that open,
00:57then anybody could just come in the industry and do a lot of things. But if you regulate
01:02that part of it, that is one of the biggest problems that we have, because then people
01:06from all over coming in and selling scrap. And this is one of the things, because when
01:11you look sometimes in the scrapyards, you see people from different companies, even TNTech,
01:17different companies coming in and selling copper.
01:20Ferguson admits that stolen state property is actively flowing into local yards, weaponized
01:26by unlicensed van collectors who are operating completely outside of the legal frameworks drawn
01:32up in 2022 in an attempt to regulate the industry.
01:36And if the association asks you all to put a ban on the copper, it's not a ban on the
01:41industry, you know, it's a ban on this copper, because we don't want the censor with the
01:46whole, all the members, we don't want to lose the whole industry.
01:51Fearing that the government will step in and collapse the multi-million dollar scrap sector
01:56as it did four years ago, the association is walking a tightrope. It is voluntarily offering
02:02up a temporary embargo on copper itself if no other mitigating measures can be found in
02:08an attempt to protecting the wider market.
02:11Right now, it's more than about $40,000 per tonne per scrap that they're getting.
02:17We're going to put a cap on the price of copper to try to reduce people trying to get involved
02:25in going and steal copper, because if you steal a little bit of copper, it's plenty money still.
02:31So we want to try to reduce that copper price to be able for people to understand that it
02:39isn't going to be just a little bit of copper, that you can keep and get plenty money.
02:43To survive, the industry is preparing to take matters into its own hands. Alongside proposals
02:49being fleshed out by a stakeholder committee, including for centralized scrap parks to bolster
02:54monitoring, TTC da plans to artificially clamp local purchase prices. This is says,
03:01will stifle the financial incentive. TTC da is set for round two of emergency talks with
03:07the dealers and major exporters on June 23rd. Ferguson says it will determine if an interim
03:14alternative to a copper ban can be found. But in the long term, TTC da wants legislative teeth
03:20teeth that will allow it to legally police the industry. Alessia Boucher, TV6 News.
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