Ot­to Car­rin­ton

Se­nior mul­ti­me­dia re­porter

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Ag­gre­gate Pro­duc­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTA­PA) is press­ing for greater cer­tain­ty in the quar­ry­ing in­dus­try, as Min­is­ter of En­er­gy Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­views a new list of op­er­a­tors seek­ing holdover let­ters and promis­es fur­ther en­gage­ment with­in two weeks.

The de­vel­op­ment fol­lows a high-lev­el meet­ing be­tween the as­so­ci­a­tion and Mooni­lal at his Port-of-Spain of­fice on Wednes­day, No­vem­ber 11, where long­stand­ing li­cens­ing chal­lenges, bu­reau­crat­ic de­lays and po­ten­tial ex­port op­por­tu­ni­ties dom­i­nat­ed dis­cus­sions

In a state­ment is­sued fol­low­ing the meet­ing, TTA­PA said the min­is­ter con­firmed that he was re­view­ing an up­dat­ed list of op­er­a­tors for con­sid­er­a­tion and ap­proval of holdover let­ters, a move the as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves could pro­vide much-need­ed sta­bil­i­ty for busi­ness­es op­er­at­ing in the sec­tor.

How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion made it clear that mean­ing­ful progress would ul­ti­mate­ly de­pend on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­mit­ments and im­prove­ments ex­pe­ri­enced by quar­ry op­er­a­tors.

TTA­PA pres­i­dent Nigel Tenia wel­comed the dis­cus­sions but warned that con­tin­ued ad­min­is­tra­tive un­cer­tain­ty was plac­ing un­nec­es­sary pres­sure on le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es.

“We are en­cour­aged by the con­tin­ued en­gage­ment and, more im­por­tant­ly, by the com­mit­ments made at the ta­ble. Our in­dus­try can­not con­tin­ue to op­er­ate un­der un­nec­es­sary ad­min­is­tra­tive un­cer­tain­ty,” Tenia said.

He stressed that a trans­par­ent and ef­fi­cient li­cens­ing sys­tem was es­sen­tial to en­cour­ag­ing in­vest­ment, pre­serv­ing em­ploy­ment and en­sur­ing the sec­tor could con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

“We need a trans­par­ent and ef­fi­cient process that al­lows le­git­i­mate op­er­a­tors to do busi­ness, in­vest, em­ploy peo­ple and con­tribute to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.”

Among the com­mit­ments aris­ing from Wednes­day’s meet­ing was an un­der­tak­ing by Mooni­lal to fa­cil­i­tate di­rect dis­cus­sions be­tween TTA­PA rep­re­sen­ta­tives and of­fi­cials from rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment agen­cies in­volved in pro­cess­ing quar­ry­ing ap­pli­ca­tions.

The pro­posed one-on-one meet­ings are ex­pect­ed to pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for op­er­a­tors to iden­ti­fy out­stand­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, ad­dress ad­min­is­tra­tive ob­sta­cles and clar­i­fy re­quire­ments that have con­tributed to de­lays in the ap­proval process.

The as­so­ci­a­tion has re­peat­ed­ly called for a more co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach among state agen­cies, ar­gu­ing that reg­u­la­to­ry un­cer­tain­ty un­der­mines busi­ness plan­ning and the in­dus­try’s abil­i­ty to sup­port con­struc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment.

Be­yond li­cens­ing, the dis­cus­sions al­so turned to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of ex­pand­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ag­gre­gate in­dus­try in­to re­gion­al ex­port mar­kets.

Ac­cord­ing to TTA­PA, Mooni­lal in­di­cat­ed that he was ac­tive­ly work­ing to as­sist the as­so­ci­a­tion in iden­ti­fy­ing po­ten­tial in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets for lo­cal­ly pro­duced ag­gre­gates.

The as­so­ci­a­tion be­lieves ex­ports could cre­ate ad­di­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­vest­ment, em­ploy­ment and for­eign ex­change earn­ings while al­low­ing the sec­tor to move be­yond its tra­di­tion­al de­pen­dence on do­mes­tic con­struc­tion ac­tiv­i­ty.

Tenia said the in­dus­try was ready to ex­plore those pos­si­bil­i­ties.

“We are al­so look­ing be­yond our do­mes­tic mar­ket. Trinidad and To­ba­go has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to po­si­tion its ag­gre­gate in­dus­try for re­gion­al ex­ports, and we in­tend to pur­sue that op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The lat­est en­gage­ment fol­lows dis­cus­sions held on June 3, when TTA­PA and the min­istry ex­am­ined the li­cens­ing frame­work, holdover let­ters and the need for greater trans­paren­cy in the min­ing sec­tor.

At that meet­ing, the min­istry al­so out­lined plans for im­proved co­or­di­na­tion among gov­ern­ment agen­cies to as­sist ap­pli­cants nav­i­gat­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry process.

While Wednes­day’s dis­cus­sions sig­nal con­tin­ued en­gage­ment, the as­so­ci­a­tion is now look­ing to­wards the next meet­ing for tan­gi­ble progress on ap­provals, in­ter-agency co­or­di­na­tion and ex­port ini­tia­tives.

Mooni­lal has agreed to meet with TTA­PA again with­in two weeks, giv­ing both sides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess whether the com­mit­ments made are trans­lat­ing in­to ac­tion.