City police recover stolen manhole covers

THE day after Port of Spain mayor Joel Martinez called on the public to report anyone stealing metal drain covers, the city police raided a scrapyard and recovered several covers believed to be stolen.

According to Supt Glen Charles, officers of the Port of Spain City Police Task Force went to 25 George Street on Saturday with a search warrant for arms and ammunition. During the search, they found a number of manhole covers believed to be stolen and arrested a 57-year-old man.

The officers also found a bundle of copper wire believed to be from stolen TSTT cable lines that were stripped.

When Sunday Newsday visited, the police were still searching the premises and found several crocus bags filled with copper wire.

On Friday, Martinez said he noticed the missing metal grills and labelled it “organised theft” within the last week or two. He called on Charles to investigate.

Charles told Sunday Newsday the raid was a major operation and the thefts caused financial strain on state agencies.

“This exercise here is sending a message to all scrap iron dealers that the police are here and we will enforce the law.”

Newsday asked Martinez if the thefts of metal covers/grills would push the corporation to use concrete covers.

He replied, “We use an open grill where water can go into the main drain, so if you put concrete, then it will impede it.

“Further, the concrete tends to mash up a lot faster than the metal. Also the metal is a lot stronger, even as you will remember that a lot of these are on the road and they are just over the drain. The other, round metal covers have WASA valves underneath and protect the valves and allow access to the underground drainage.”

Asked if the fines for such thefts should be increased so as to deter thieves, Martinez vowed to look into this question.

“We do have cameras in the city and I’d want the police to look into the areas where we have cameras to determine if they are able to see any maliciousness taking place regarding the removal of the grill gates and the metal covers.”

Martinez said, “I’d like to appeal to the individuals who maliciously remove the city infrastructure that covers the underground drains which assist us in cleaning these drain.

“When you remove those covers, what you are doing is actually creating a hole in the middle of the road, which, if a vehicle goes down in it, can pose serious damage to that vehicle and can maybe cause someone to have to swing away from it, which could cause serious injury of death.”

He said replacing the covers was costly at a time of limited funds.

“So citizens of Port of Spain, please, if you see anyone removing the infrastructure from the city, it is something we want to discourage. Please report it. Take a picture and send it to the mayor and let us know something, so our police can act on it.

“It can cause serious injury to someone who may not have seen the hole, either driving or walking on the street.”

Only few scrap yards buy stolen material, says association

Scrap Iron Dealers Association president Allan Ferguson said, “The association condemns these kind of acts. We make it clear to our members that when people come into your yard with these kind of things, not to purchase it. If we don’t have a market for it, it will not be stolen. We make it very clear to all our members, not to purchase these manhole covers.

“We continue to let the police know who are the people who go to these yards and which yard they go to sell them. There are certain yards in Trinidad that will purchase anything because they don’t care about what takes place in the country, because they will leave here and go to other countries and set up.

“We make it clear to the police which are the yards people are going with these things.”

Asked how many yards buy stolen metal, Ferguson replied, “It’s just a few yards involved in these unscrupulous types of behaviour. I can tell you that for sure. We know them. We tell the police about them. We are familiar with them.

“They get held by the police, but win their case, because nobody can identify the things.” He said unlike manhole covers, many items have no identifying marks.

Further, Ferguson said under the existing act, the fine for stealing scrap iron was typically $200-$300, which was the same or less than what thieves could sell a couple of manhole covers for.

He welcomed tougher penalties proposed in the Ministry of Trade's new scrap-metal policy. This document said the current Old Metal and Marine Stores Act was outdated and proposed a $500,000 fine for anyone dealing in scrap metal who fails to register with the authorities.

Ferguson made the point that previously his association had met dealers up and down Trinidad and Tobago to successfully help end the previous theft of TSTT copper wire cables.