Even as the Business Minister noted that scrap metal exportation is currently ongoing in a limited capacity, it was announced that the legislation needed to govern the trade was likely to be enacted by year end.
Business Minister Dominic Gaskin
Business Minister Dominic Gaskin made this declaration on Monday. “Right now we are in the middle of a limited resumption, so there are exporters who are exporting scrap metal,” Gaskin said.
The Minister pointed out that new legislation had been introduced and approved by Cabinet, and presently was in the hands of the Attorney General before it was presented to Parliament.
He stated, “We have also taken a new legislation to Cabinet. It has been approved at that level, it is being finalised by the Attorney General Chambers and after that, it will go to the National Assembly for approval”.
According to him, the Ministry is anticipating the new legislation being enacted before the end of the year, which will see ‘firm and solid’ management, to regulate and monitor the industry through the development of a managing body.
Government had approved a restart of the scrap metal trade in Guyana during February 2017 after closing down the industry one year prior to that.
The main reason for this was to allow exporters to ship out the existing stock for a limited period of three months and ensure that there was no stockpile of the materials.
However, in April 2018, after several months of delays, Government had decided to reopen the scrap metal trade on a limited basis to facilitate the clearing of some of the accumulated scrap metal across the country.
While a date for the resumption of the trade has not been announced, the Business Minister had told this media group that the date depended on several important factors.
The Minister disclosed that a meeting was held with exporters and dealers to introduce them to a new system that the Business Ministry was trying to implement.
According to him, it is a software-based system that was specially designed to help the Ministry to monitor and regulate the trade once it resumes, creating a level playing field for all.
“We’ve met with them; we’ve discussed it with them and we have arranged some training sessions for them to familiarise themselves with how the system will work and we are looking to do a little resumption starting next month. I can’t give you an exact date because it depends on a lot of things,” he explained.
Gaskin said the resumption of the trade would give the Ministry the opportunity to test the system to ensure that it worked and also would help to clear some of the accumulated scrap metal that has been legitimately acquired.
