Would the PNP have opposed the ban on the scrap metal trade

[Mosiah]

if the govt. had not done banned it? I am not convinced.

Tufton did the right thing - end the bogus, tiefing trade NOW!

Until the traders can come with some feasible system to monitor, regulate and punish wrongdoers in the industry, let them scrap cake!

And just to show what hooligans were in that business, now they have threatened the minister's life! Yes, in my view, they have! The nerve of these crooks!

[Assasin]

them lucky. A true the thief them nuh hit them head office yet.
Bahamas just stopped their Scrap metal trade too.
Mi hear say the man them raid the hiways that was just built and so many governmet and private sector firms

[Exile]

Same ting a gwaan down yah....

[Willi]

Jamaican politics is hell.

[Hortical]

Grand Bahama Power Company's substation was robbed of 200 feet of ground cooper wire, resulting in $35,000 worth of repairs. There is a 90-day temporary ban on scrap metal exports & a permanent ban on copper in the Bahamas.

[TDowl]

Could we drop de word on Scrapy that there is a whole bunch of scrap metal at Gordon House? Wait a wah mi deh seh, that is where the vested interest lies... LOL

[MdmeX]

As to that tiefing one from India, who claims he invested how much millions into the scrap metal trade.

[MdmeX]

Picking up the scraps

Dealers bitter, warn of serious fallout in the wake of scrap metal trade ban
BY CONRAD HAMILTON Sunday Observer senior writer hamiltonc@jamaicaobserver.com
Sunday, July 31, 2011

DISENFRANCHISED scrap metal dealers have complained bitterly that the ban on their lucrative trade represents an infringement of the basic right to make a living.

One local deale, who left his home and law practice in India more than eight years ago to establish a scrap metal facility in Kingston, suggested that the decision by the Bruce Golding administration to pull the plugs on the scrap metal trade was unconstitutional.
Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton said that Cabinet was forced to take drastic action to curb the wanton theft and mangling of valuable property.
Former Industry and Commerce Minister, Karl Samuda broke ranks with former Cabinet colleagues and declared the decision to pull the plug on the scrap metal trade unfortunate.
This truck is laden with salvaged metal destined for processing and export.
Piles of scrap metal are strewn on the ground at the Riverton landfill in Kingston . (file photos)



Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton said that Cabinet was forced to take drastic action to curb the wanton theft and mangling of valuable property.


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Rahesh Chander, a member of the Scrap Metal Federation of Jamaica (SMFJ), and operator of Chand Finance and Export Company, located off Spanish Town Road, close to the Riverton Solid Waste Disposal Facility, blasted Industry, Investment and Commerce Minister, Dr Christopher Tufton for what he said was the high-handed manner in which the decision was made.
"Jamaica and India take their laws from the British system, and that system views the right to carry out a profession, occupation or trade as a fundamental right, protected by the Constitution," the visibly upset businessman told the Sunday Observer.
His comments came hours before the announcement that the SMFJ had retained the services of a powerful law firm to advise its members what should be their next course of action.
Chander, like several other scrap metal dealers who spoke with the Sunday Observer following the minister's ban, raised concerns about the ability of the Government to provide jobs for the many men and women who depend on the scrap metal trade.
"I am a lawyer by profession, I practised in India for twenty years, I study criminology also and know that no person is born a criminal, it's circumstances that breed criminals" said Chander, speaking from his air-conditioned office situated at the back of the massive scrap metal site at Riverton. (Well, Mr. Lawyer, go back to India and take your scrap metal thugs, and ty turning the Taj Mahal into scrap metal, more money is on THAT)
One of the many employees who were hTaj Mahal into scrap metalastily loading old pieces of metal onto a container for what could well have been among the last shipments, said: "Mi don't know how people going to manage, all 80-year-old woman a sell metal so she can buy her dinner."
Chander's views and those of his employees were similar to those expressed by another dealer who identified himself as 'Rambo'.
"This (in reference to the scrap metal business) is people life," the short, yet burly-looking registered exporter told the Sunday Observer.
Rambo, who operates an even larger scrap metal collection site admitted that some dealers were indeed purchasing and exporting stolen metal and emphasised that action was needed.
However, both maintained that the Government contributed to the problem by issuing too many licences.
Said Chandler: "While the Government is closing the industry, I have to ask one question, why did they continue to give new licences, why did they not stop after 2008? We have made a huge investment in this. I have invested over one million US dollars since the recession started."
Both dealers insisted that suggestions given to the commerce minister by members of SMFJ could have averted the shutdown. Those recommendations included the establishment of a centralised loading facility, which would be supervised by personnel from Jamaica Customs, as well as members of the security forces.
Chander also indicated that he and other members of the Federation were willing to put up as much as ten million Jamaican dollars as security against illegitimate scrap metal purchases.
"We seh to the Government, we will put up three, or five, or even ten million dollars. If you find any stolen thing in our containers, take the ten million dollars. You tell me, which legitimate dealer would want to lose so much money?" he asked.
The businessman added that the Government could have used surveillance technology to monitor activities at the central facility which the federation had proposed.
"Sitting in India, I can see what's going into my containers, I have recordings on my computer for six months, why can't the Government do something like this?" as he invited this reporter into his office to observe the web-based surveillance system which recorded the many activities taking place on the site.
One major concern of the scrap metal dealers and their workers, who spoke with the Sunday Observer, was what they cited as the very short time the minister had given them to get rid of their material.
"Mi don't know what kind of robot work that, fi one somebody tek up 300 tonne of metal offa di ground, mi nuh know how that a go possible. The minister must have plans to take back this metal, cause how wi going to get back our money?" Rambo queried, a day after the minister's announcement and two days before the lockdown deadline.
Another dealer, who requested anonymity, said he knew why the Government was in a "rush to lock down the sector". According to him, there have been murmurs that the scrap metal industry will be back in business, under the control of the state-owned National Solid Waste Management Authority, headed by Joan Gordon-Webley. He argued that much of the scrap metal that would normally end up on the NSWMA's disposal site had been going directly to scrap metal dealers.
His claim that the NSWMA may have some interest in entering the scrap metal business may not be far-fetched, as earlier this year, Mrs Gordon-Webley made a similar pronouncement at the Observer Monday Exchange.
"We are looking at the possibility of exporting our own scrap metal," Gordon-Webley revealed then.
According to her, the solid waste agency routinely collected 'white waste' and it had to be adequately disposed.
"We pick up white waste, which are old fridge, old stoves. As far as we are concerned it harbours rats, it is a health hazard," said Gordon-Webley, who added that it would be more advantageous to the NSWMA if the metal was sold instead of being buried.
"If I am using the Government's trucks to collect scrap metal, why am I going to bury it?" she commented in that May interview.
She, however, insisted that the agency would not be competing with existing operators or be purchasing scrap metal, but would rather use the opportunity to earn from scrap metal it collected.
But, in an interview with the Sunday Observer yesterday, the commerce minister Dr Christopher Tufton insisted that there were no plans to hand over the scrap metal trade to the NSWMA.
"Absolute rubbish! Cabinet met and considered all the options, including the recommendations put forward by the federation and the decision was a shutdown," Tufton declared.
Last Tuesday, he announced the ban on the scrap metal trade saying Cabinet was forced to take such drastic action in the national interest, in order to curb the wanton theft and mangling of valuable property. Railway lines, water pipes, telephone cables, bridges, road signs, gates and even handles from exhumed coffins were vandalised by scrap metal thieves to sell to rogue dealers for export.
However, the Government has been receiving heavy criticism from some quarters, including the Opposition People's National Party, whose spokesman on commerce, Anthony Hylton, described the Government's ban as undemocratic.
Former Industry and Commerce minister, Karl Samuda, who up to last month had responsibility for the scrap metal trade, broke ranks with his former Cabinet colleagues and declared that the decision to pull the plug on the trade was unfortunate. The former minister and senior member of the Jamaica Labour Party said other measures could have been implemented to avert the dislocation that would result.
Apart from the many Jamaican businesses and private individuals who are in favour of the ban, the Government has received support from the National Democratic Movement. That political party also wants the Government to take control of "what's left" of what it calls a "dwindling trade," as well as "cancel all export permits and reassign all private exports through the NSWMA."
Following the announcement of the ban, Prime Minister Bruce Golding reiterated that the Government was standing by its decision. Speaking on his monthly talk show 'Jamaica House Live' last Wednesday, Golding announced that he had instructed the commerce minister to conduct a review of the sector by January of next year to determine what new terms and conditions could be introduced to allow companies that generate scrap (such as the bauxite sector) to export such material.
In his interview with the Sunday Observer, Tufton maintained that only those entities would be allowed to export scrap metal in the future.
Based on discussions with some of the exporters in the now-defunct scrap metal export trade, the going rate for the commodity is between US$300 and US$400 per tonne.
The average man with his cart load of metal was earning at least eight Jamaican dollars per pound of metal supplied to a dealer.



Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...#ixzz1TkSwLRMX

[Mosiah]

On the one hand they say,

DISENFRANCHISED scrap metal dealers have complained bitterly that the ban on their lucrative trade represents an infringement of the basic right to make a living.

On the other, it is,

Said Chandler: "While the Government is closing the industry, I have to ask one question, why did they continue to give new licences, why did they not stop after 2008?

Idiots!

[Peter R]

It's called having your cake and eating it...

[TDowl]

"Opposition People's National Party, whose spokesman on commerce, Anthony Hylton," "Former Industry and Commerce Minister, Karl Samuda broke ranks with former Cabinet colleagues"

Follow the money mi seh.

[Exile]

Ah Peter, you are more creative than that....

[Assasin]

if the scrap metal dealer were doing their job this wouldn't happen. You want tell me the people who buy scrap metal don't know the difference between a bridge from old stove? and railway track from old car?

[Reggaedoc]

I think you are absolutely correct Mo. It seems as if the opposition opposes for the sake of opposing, and not for the implimentation of sound policies.

Another thing I dont understand is why this enormous scrap metal industry in a country that doesn't manufacture metals, or anything made of metals? So enormous that a gentleman can quit a law practice all the way in India to immigrate to Jamaica and get involve. I guess the word is out worldwide, that Jamaica is where its at if you want to get rich selling scrap, just like it is probably out on fake cigarettes etc. Do you think corruption might be involved. One of the big players call himself Rambo.

My take is simple, for a country that does not have a heavy metal based manufacturing industry to have a successful scrap metal export industry, the scrap metal must come from delapidated infrastructure. In a small country with limited infrastructure, to maintain this industry at the level to attract a lawyer from India to remain in involved, and also Rambo, we must reach a point where the dismantling of viable infrastructure will take place, illegally of course, or at least has to be considered. How many jobs is this industry creating, and what types of jobs, and salaries are involved. The opposition needs to tell Mr. Chan to that he should try and pass the Jamaican Bar, and contribute to our country in a meaningful manner, or he can.... I leave you to finish the rest.

[MdmeX]

Damn scoundrels. I understand that even an ambulance fell victim to the scrap metal trade.

Gimme a break, is how much scrap Jamaica have suh?