Stakeholders back steel plant restart but warn against secrecy

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

En­vi­ron­men­tal ac­tivist Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh and Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah have sup­port­ed the pro­posed restart of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas, but warn that the Gov­ern­ment must dis­close the cost, terms and strate­gic im­pli­ca­tions of the project.

Their call comes af­ter Gov­ern­ment an­nounced on the week­end that it had signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with Pin­na­cle Steel and Vana­di­um Cor­po­ra­tion to be­gin dis­cus­sions on re­fur­bish­ing, recom­mis­sion­ing and op­er­at­ing the plant.

It said the project could al­so po­si­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go as a pro­duc­er of vana­di­um, a strate­gic met­al used in aero­space and de­fence prod­ucts, in­clud­ing mil­i­tary air­craft. The Gov­ern­ment es­ti­mates the coun­try could even­tu­al­ly sup­ply up to 50 per cent of to­tal Unit­ed States de­mand if the project pro­ceeds. It added that the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (Plipde­co), which owns the prop­er­ty and lands where the plant is lo­cat­ed, is al­so a par­ty to the agree­ment.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Kublals­ingh, who led protests against pro­posed alu­mini­um smelters and oth­er heavy in­dus­tri­al projects sev­er­al years ago, said he had no ob­jec­tion to restart­ing steel pro­duc­tion.

“I don’t have any prob­lems with the restart of the steel mill. I think it needs to be restart­ed, so I think that’s a very good ven­ture,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said the Gov­ern­ment must dis­close the price the com­pa­ny will pay for nat­ur­al gas, elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter, as well as the ben­e­fits T&T will re­ceive.

Kublals­ingh said the en­vi­ron­men­tal re­view must al­so ex­am­ine par­tic­u­late mat­ter, dust and ef­flu­ent from the plant. He said the pub­lic must know whether the in­vestor will re­ceive favourable util­i­ty prices while lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers and con­sumers face high­er costs.

“We hide all the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with the projects, and we bear all the costs, and the for­eign­ers and in­vestors bear all the prof­its,” Kublals­ingh said.

“We bear all the so­cial costs, the eco­nom­ic costs, the fi­nan­cial costs, the eco­log­i­cal costs, the costs of elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter, and then they end up with the prof­its. That is the ma­jor fear fac­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go with these projects.”

Ab­du­lah al­so de­scribed the plant’s restart as pos­i­tive, but said the Gov­ern­ment must re­lease more in­for­ma­tion about the MoU, any con­ces­sions be­ing of­fered and the rea­son the US com­pa­ny was se­lect­ed.

He al­so sup­port­ed the Steel Work­ers Union of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion that it should be con­sult­ed and that for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal work­ers who are still able and will­ing to work should re­ceive pri­or­i­ty for em­ploy­ment.

Asked whether sup­ply­ing a strate­gic ma­te­r­i­al used by the US de­fence sec­tor could make Point Lisas or the coun­try a tar­get dur­ing a ma­jor con­flict, Ab­du­lah said the pos­si­bil­i­ty could not be dis­missed.

“Yes, it be­comes a con­cern if there is a glob­al mil­i­tary de­vel­op­ment that is lo­cat­ed in this part of the world. Then yes, it could be­come a tar­get. That’s al­ways a pos­si­bil­i­ty,” he said.

How­ev­er, Ab­du­lah ques­tioned the ba­sis for Gov­ern­ment’s es­ti­mate. He said it was un­clear whether the plant can pro­duce vana­di­um or whether the US would de­pend on a for­eign pro­duc­er for such a large share of a strate­gic ma­te­r­i­al.

He said safe­guards should in­clude union rep­re­sen­ta­tion, pri­or­i­ty em­ploy­ment for for­mer work­ers, prop­er safe­ty stan­dards, re­spect for labour laws and fair prices for the coun­try’s gas, elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter.

“The coun­try must get a fair share,” he said.