Energy Ministry: Gunmen a plague on quarries

GUNMEN toting illicit firearms plague the illegal quarries of TT, rendering the authorities afraid to visit, heard Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday. The committee grilled Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries staff on the Auditor General’s report on that ministry’s affairs within the Pubic Accounts of TT for the past three years.

The ministry’s Director of Minerals Monty Beharry said staff of various state agencies who visit quarrying sites have been met with violence and the sight of heavily armed individuals with illegal firearms.

He said the ministry had received 92 complaints against quarry operators in the past two and a half years. Beharry reckoned between a third and a half of all quarries were illegal operations but could not be specific. He said the ministry worked with the Defence Force and police and passed on complaints to the latter.

“The people engaged in illegal activity are heavily armed. Agencies don’t have the resources so we rely on the police.”

Beharry said various agencies entering such areas have been co-operating with each other very often and well.

“These other agencies are also challenged. They have to patrol and police those same areas. Their staff are also met with the violence and the heavily armed persons. None of the public agencies, non-military and non-police, are trained to deal with that.”

Tewarie asked if those armed individuals have illegal firearms.

“I’ve seen reports indicating those persons have illegal firearms. It is highly likely persons engaged in these activities will have illegal firearms.”

Tewarie remarked, “I just want to put that on the public record because it is important.”

Beharry said the ministry had sought requests for proposals for providers of drones to monitor how much material was being removed from quarries. The proposals are due next year. At present, quarry operators send the ministry quarterly reports, and ministry staff may make spot visits. “We advise companies on their royalties to pay.”

PAC member Adrian Leonce asked if the ministry relied on quarry operators to tell the ministry their production.

“Correct,” Beharry replied. “That’s been the traditional system.” He added that the ministry would audit most quarries yearly, depending on the ministry's capacity.

Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell asked the value of revenues lost to the state via illegal quarries. Beharry replied no study had been done on that question. “I’d not like to estimate. Mineral value is a complex issue.” He said a quarry’s earnings depended on economics, mining and geology, and could only be calculated from data.

Asked about 74 new applications for quarries, Beharry said 53 had gotten the ministry’s nod so far while others were being processed. Given Tewarie’s concerns to get revenues from new quarries, Beharry vowed to monitor any new licensees more closely than usual.

Replying to Mitchell, Beharry said, for the past four years, quarry operators had accumulated outstanding royalties of $44 million to pay the ministry. Given questions over who owns lands in some cases, he said the ministry needed the Chief State Solicitor to make queries before the ministry could charge royalties.

Otherwise the PAC was very concerned at the ministry’s reliance on upstream companies to tell them of the volumes of gas and oil extracted.

Ministry staff at length assured the PAC that meters at gas-wells were properly calibrated but then said the ministry did not regularly monitor the readings indicating gas volumes being extracted.

PAC member Taharqa Obika asked how could the state not know the production volumes but have to rely on being notified by the upstream firms.

He asked if the ministry relied on good faith and had no control.

Sheldon Butcher, director of downstream petroleum management replied yes.

Obika remarked, “Every citizen would have difficulty with that.”

Butcher said that for both gas and oil extraction, the ministry had no meters of its own to measure volumes extracted but left that up to the upstream firms.

He said given that many of the thousands of wells produced only two to five barrels of oil per day, it was too costly to put meters at all of them, so all the oil extractions are pooled at collection points.

Obika asked if the AV Drilling scandal could ever recur, but Butcher replied that he would hesitate to answer that.