THE Scrap metal business, though very much active,
is being conducted under limited resumption as it awaits approval of a new draft legislation that will govern the Scrap metal industry.

According to traders of scrap metal, business is slow but still kicking. The traders explained that they have experienced a vast change in the money they would receive from scrap metal selling and buying but that is all due to the change in time.

While awaiting the passage of the legislation, the Scrap Metal Unit, within the Ministry of Business, works to stabilize the scrap metal industry.

In its effort to ensure the scrap metal industry functions with a level of normalcy, the Scrap Metal Unit of the Ministry of Business has been delegated some duties in monitoring and regulating the scrap metal industry.

The unit ensures that each scrap metal trader has been legally permitted to do so. The Unit also endorses export licenses, as well as facilitates the collection of container fees for those exports.

The Scrap Metal Unit also facilitates investigations into the source of metals the traders wish to get sold, due to there being reported incidents, in the past, where persons stole metal manhole covers from streets in Georgetown as well as historic artifacts from Linden, associated with the bauxite industry.

In an interview with long-standing scrap metal trader, Nazim Pashaw, he related to the Guyana Chronicle that while business is not as it used to be when he started in the scrap metal industry, it has not gotten to a point where it would not allow him to sustain himself and his employees.

“When I first started this business I used to buy iron at up to $70,000 dollars a ton; today iron is $20,000 a ton. When iron was $70,000 a ton we could have paid a truck to go in the interior and bring out heavy material, now you can’t pay a truck man, the price is not there to pay them, so we are not able to trade a large amount and get that much money, but at least you got to cope with what going,” said pashaw.

He went on to explain that due to the drop in pricing the movement of scrap metal has been at a decline.

“Back in the day, persons used to go into the bush and bring out large scrap metal, because they used to get a lot of money to bring it but now you can’t get nobody to go in there and bring out nothing for no small amount of money,” he related.

Pashaw said the scrap metal unit has been working to ensure that the Industry runs with a level or order until the new legislation is enacted. He went on to say that the Scrap Metal Unit works to ensure that all traders are accurately documented with licenses for trading and that the Unit does not pose any problem to any persons who are within their right legal perimeters.

The Scrap Metal Unit within the Ministry of Business said that it is optimistic to seeing positive changes for the scrap metal industry once the Legislation has been passed.