Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTSI­DA), Al­lan Fer­gu­son, says one rec­om­men­da­tion to ad­dress cop­per theft is to cen­tralise all scrap yards in or­der to bet­ter mon­i­tor deal­ers’ in­ven­to­ry.

His sug­ges­tion came dur­ing a stake­hold­er meet­ing that in­clud­ed of­fi­cials from the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, po­lice and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

The meet­ing, which took place yes­ter­day, fol­lowed an in­ci­dent a day ear­li­er in which a man al­leged­ly broke in­to a Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) sub­sta­tion at Brechin Cas­tle to steal cop­per. The sus­pect re­port­ed­ly came in­to con­tact with a 132 kV break­er, caus­ing a fault that re­sult­ed in a volt­age dip.