Faris challenges Govt’s handling of scrap iron industry after TSTT fire

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count for its man­age­ment of the scrap iron in­dus­try, fol­low­ing the sus­pect­ed ar­son at­tack at the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT) com­pound in Laven­tille over the week­end.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said the in­ci­dent rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about the pro­tec­tion of State as­sets and the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to cop­per theft.

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“The Gov­ern­ment has to ac­count for the fact that there is a scrap iron mora­to­ri­um that’s on. You’ll re­call that this phe­nom­e­non of theft of pub­lic prop­er­ty for scrap iron oc­cu­pied cen­tral at­ten­tion un­der our gov­ern­ment. We draft­ed a scrap iron deal­er’s bill. Li­cences were put in­to place. We’re now stand­ing near­ly two years in­to this Gov­ern­ment, they have a du­ty to ac­count now as to how they’re man­ag­ing this,” Al-Rawi said.