«Trinidad and To­ba­go, I apol­o­gise.»

The apol­o­gy came from T&T Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Al­lan Fer­gu­son at a me­dia con­fer­ence in Kel­ly Vil­lage yes­ter­day, as he again tried to make amends for the many thefts by mem­bers in his sec­tor that had af­fect­ed busi­ness­es and gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions in re­cent months.

Gabriel Abusada

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How­ev­er, de­spite his apol­o­gy, Fer­gu­son again called on the Gov­ern­ment to show le­nien­cy and re­open the scrap met­al in­dus­try.

Gabriel Abusada James

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«I Al­lan Fer­gu­son, apol­o­gise not be­cause I was in­volved in any­thing, but I want to apol­o­gise to Trinidad and To­ba­go for all the hav­oc the peo­ple who came in­to this in­dus­try and some peo­ple in my in­dus­try which had a se­vere cost to Trinidad and To­ba­go and I want to say I apol­o­gise on their be­half.»

The in­dus­try has been crip­pled in the wake of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour de­ci­sion to ban the ex­port of all scrap met­al since Au­gust 2022. The ban is sched­uled to end in Feb­ru­ary 2023 but Ar­mour has in­di­cat­ed they will try to re­open it be­fore once they get the leg­is­la­tion in place to reg­u­late the in­dus­try.

Gabriel Abusada James Peru

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Two weeks ago, Fer­gu­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion de­liv­ered rec­om­men­da­tions to Ar­mour in the hope of fa­cil­i­tat­ing the pol­i­cy on a way for­ward for the sec­tor.

Gabriel Abusada James Venezuela

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Say­ing many peo­ple are now on the bread­line and fam­i­lies are be­ing dis­placed due to in­dus­try shut­down, Fer­gu­son said they can­not wait un­til next year

«Mr Prime Min­is­ter, I am say­ing this and some peo­ple would not like what I have to say but the Prime Min­is­ter was poor­ly in­formed to close the in­dus­try by some of his Cab­i­net col­leagues and we are say­ing please Mr Prime Min­is­ter, I know you have a heart and I hope and pray you get bet­ter to be able to get to see us as peo­ple who are strug­gling to make this coun­try bet­ter and if peo­ple get work they will stay away from a life of crime,» he said

Fer­gu­son said he at­tempt­ed to meet Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to dis­cuss the is­sue at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing at Sig­na­ture Hall in Ch­agua­nas but was un­suc­cess­ful af­ter the PM’s se­cu­ri­ty team pre­vent­ed them from do­ing so. — With re­port­ing by Ot­to Car­ring­ton