Scrapping sale of scrap

Posted on east-timor-studies groups mailing list

http://timorsunshine.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Yes, you heard it right. ET has temporarily banned the sale of scrap metal according to a press release just in from the PM's office.
Rogue scrap metal traders buying valuable cabling and other materials suspected to have been stolen have forced the Government of Timor-Leste to temporarily ban the export of all scrap metal.Apparently, collection and trading of scrap metal has sky rocketed after the civil unrest obviously due to the deluge of damaged properties and the govt is having trouble policing which of the scrap metal being traded is bona fide scrap or simply stolen scrap. A colleague laughed and said,"you know now scrap metal is US$3/kg so the kids in the neighbourhood are all hunting for scrap metal to sell to the traders." So if your pots and pans start walking, you know where they've gone ;-) Perhaps this explains the recent story "Timor Telecom becomes victim of theft" in Diario that said TT (the monopoly telecom provider) has lost some 9.5 kilometres of telephone cables, and has reported 43 cases of stolen cables and solar panels! [ my own primitive translation] The spokesperson even said that after they had replaced the stolen phone cables, they were stolen again, therefore TT has stopped replacement services until the authorities can guarantee some security. Perhaps that's why after a month of waiting for a new internet connection, our Becora home remains unconnected to the virtual world (albeit a very slow one even if we got online).Speaking of internet, TT has been putting out adverts in the local papers "Is our internet is expensive? $2 = 1 hour" I can't help but suspect this is a reaction to Ramos-Horta's stab at the monopoly telcom company for having such skyhigh prices. JRH had said about a few weeks ago that he's requested for World Bank experts to look into the contract with TT to explore how prices esp for internet can be lowered. Coincidentally after those remarks, TT introduced a new $5 top up card to commemorate it's 4th anniversary but unfortunately the price per minute remains the same. I had to explain this to a disappointed colleague who couldn't understand why TT bothered to introduce a new card if the price remains the same. The local papers also interviewed a local economist to explain to the people that the new $5 top up card is NOT cheaper. Oh, when, when will we be liberated from the evil clutches of TT's US$0.20 per minute phone calls?