Dear Editor,

The latest episode of serious attacks on this nation’s infrastructure has been the straw which has broken the patience of Mr Samuda et al. The latest victim is the Colbeck irrigation system and its dependents, the long-suffering farmers. Given the litany of other varieties of metal stolen, inclusive of drain covers and road signs as well as the cataclysmic nature of this epidemic, it is safe to say that the body of our nation’s infrastucture is being raped daily.

While one can easily identify with and understand the painful frustration, we must endeavourto refrain from impetuous behaviour – the kind of behaviour which pushes the country, and more specifically Minister Samuda, to call for a shutdown of this “dubious” industry. Will a shutdown of the industry definitively halt the rampant theft? What this may actually precipitate is a result quite similar to what unfolded in America in the early 1900s after prohibition was enacted. The barring of the consumptiuon of alcohol (prohibition) actually led to increased consumption of alcohol via a vast underworld criminal network.

Criminals will find a way to “peddle their wares”. Mr Samuda also needs to be reminded, lest he forget, of the main plank of his party’s campaign manifesto – that shout of “jobs, jobs and more jobs”. So to shut down the sector would be to add to the ranks of the unemployed. Worse is that we would be jeopardising the livelihood of genuine members of the scrap metal industry, individulas who have families and who obey the law.

Indeed, to close the sector would be to imperil their already fragile existence. The good must not suffer for the bad. What the minister must do is to invite all law-abiding citizens to participate in identifying those who perpetrated those vicious acts. We must recognise that the theft that now threatens our country’s stability is symptomatic of the host of other ills that plague our nation. Stringent means of isolating and cauterising theft must be made at all levels, whether civic or governmental. We must cut off the oxygen being supplied to these abominable individuals and purge our society and culture of criminal behaviour.

Noel Matherson

noelmatherson@gmail.com