Energy Minister: No ministerial licence needed to import aggregate

"Anybody who wishes to import and export aggregate now can do so without having to apply for permission to do so. We have agreed to liberalise this particular area in an effort to bring prices back down and bring efficiency into the system," the minister said.

In an interview following a signing ceremony at National Petroleum Marketing last Friday, Williams said Government is now in the process of taking a series of tough measures to clean-up the local quarry industry and these measures would dispel the notion that the State is powerless to right the wrongs currently plaguing the industry.

Williams recalled that the current problems plaguing the quarry sector where linked in a large part to the Minerals Act of 2000, which was passed by the former government. He said there was a lot of confusion about which law actually regulated the sector but the ministry’s lawyers have now solved the problem.

"The Minerals Act spoke about quarries but anything that goes on State lands can be governed by the State Lands Act. So that we now have the means to prosecute anybody who is conducting these illegal acts," he explained.

Drawing reference to previous statements made by Prime Minister Patrick Manning and Special Anti- Crime Unit of TT director Brigadier Peter Joseph about rooting out any criminal elements in the industry, Williams said he has since been assured by Attorney General John Jeremie that "once arrests are made, prosecutions will indeed take place." Williams said the National Security Ministry is already mobilising to deal with illegal quarrying and as was previously mentioned during the recent public consultation on the Green Paper on the quarry sector, "we have a fair idea of some of the extractions that have been taking place." He said the actions of the National Security Ministry will be supported by initiatives of the Fin-ance Ministry, which will be going after back royalties owed by certain quarry operators to the State.

Williams also said that a white paper outlining Government’s policy towards the quarry sector is currently being drafted and he was optimistic that it would be brought to Parliament sometime in the new session, which begins in mid-September. The minister predicted that all those who claim that Government is powerless to deal with what has been going on in the quarry sector "will have to eat crow."