| Related Links: | Articles on SN Business |
| Letters Menu | Archival Menu |
Even as officially registered scrap metal dealers bemoan the financial losses accruing in the wake of the temporary hold placed on the export of scrap metal, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds has reiterated the tough stand that government is taking to curb the practice of the theft and conversion into scrap metal of vital pieces of equipment from key utility companies.
Government has assigned the Office of the Prime Minister to clamp down on the theft and scrapping of metals and last Monday the Prime Minister told Stabroek Business in a telephone interview that new procedures for the shipment of scrap metal overseas that will require dealers to account for the metal that they export are being fashioned by his office at this time.
Scrap dealers with whom Stabroek Business spoke, however, are calling for a speeding up of the new procedures in order that their export permits can be restored. They say that their businesses have been brought to a virtual standstill by what a dealer described as a "temporary export ban."
Three legal scrap metal dealers with whom Stabroek Business spoke on condition of anonymity have said that while they support the move to put an end to the illegalities that pervade the sector they are concerned that their own businesses are being punished for the practices of the hundreds of rogue operators across the country.
They told Stabroek Business that the sources of their purchases include material salvaged from refuse sites, old vehicles and discarded domestic and industrial items. The owner of one of the scrap metal facilities admitted to receiving visits and telephone calls from employees of one of the three major utility companies with offers to sell scrap and that reports of those visits and calls including the license plate numbers of vehicles that have shown up at the business premises have been passed to senior officials of the company.
One of the three dealers claims that the temporary halt to the issuing of export permits came without warning resulting in dealers being left with the responsibility of storing large quantities of scrap. The company in question says that since September it has been paying $4,500.00 per day for a storage container. The same company told Stabroek Business that it had been forced to send its seven employees home since in the absence of a capacity to export scrap "no business is being done."
Another dealer told Stabroek Business that the cessation in the issuance of export permits meant that revenues totalling "at least US$1m a week" were being lost. "We understand the nature of the problem but the solution that is being applied is not acceptable," he said.
The third scrap dealer with whom Stabroek Business spoke questioned whether the "tightening up of exports at ports" would solve the problem since he said that much of scrap being exported from Guyana was being moved overland to Brazil. The dealer pointed out that while there were only "a handful" of legitimate scrap metal businesses in Guyana there were "hundreds of pirates" in the trade and that the solution lay in setting up mechanisms that would regulate the trade. During his telephone interview with Stabroek Business the Prime Minister related an incident in which electrical equipment valued at US$1m, the property of the now defunct Linmine, which had been set aside following the takeover of the company by OMAI had been discovered burnt and scrapped when moves were made to put the equipment into service elsewhere. He said that under the new procedures for the export of scrap dealers would be required to account for all the metal that they export." "We will be asking the utility companies to be present when the containers are being loaded and once any item is queried we will be requiring the dealer to bring the person from whom they acquired the item in its original state," the Prime Minister said. Asked when the impasse over the export of scrap was likely to end the Prime Minister said that approvals were already being issued for the export of ferrous metals and that the situation with regard to non-ferrous metals would be regularized "within a week."
Moves by government to clamp down on the illegalities in the scrap metal trade have come in the wake of complaints made to the authorities, principally by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) and also by the Guyana Power And Light Company (GPL) and Guyana Water Inc. The three entities have been voicing frustration over what they say is a multi million dollar racket involving thieves who destroy millions of dollars worth of infrastructure in order to access metals that fetch lucrative prices. The move by the authorities suggests that they believe that there is collusion between the thieves and legitimate scrap metal dealers who purchase and export the stolen material. The temporary export ban has mostly affected non-ferrous materials - brass, copper, aluminum, stainless steel and lead -apparently the metals of choice by thieves. At a meeting with scrap metal dealers on Thursday October 26 the Prime Minister had warned that government would put an end to the scrap metal trade altogether if the vandalism continued. Meanwhile, Stabroek Business understands that registered scrap metal dealers are moving to set up an association that would seek to register scrap metal dealers and to establish a code of practice for the sector. The dealers have recruited the services of a consultant whom they say is in the process of drafting regulations which they hope will remove illegal dealers from the trade and reduce the level of stolen scrap entering the system. They say that the new regulations are intended to work in concert with such rules as are set out by government for the acquisition and sale of scrap metal. Most of the scrap metal legally exported from Guyana is sent to the United States and China.