RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The lone sur­vivor of the Paria div­ing tragedy, Christo­pher Boodram, says he ea­ger­ly awaits a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He does not on­ly want to dis­cuss com­pen­sa­tion but wants to speak about reg­u­lat­ing the com­mer­cial div­ing in­dus­try.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Boodram said he had a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence just two months be­fore his friends died in­side Sealine 36 on Feb­ru­ary 25 2022.

Say­ing there was ram­pant ex­ploita­tion of divers, Boodram point­ed out that if the Prime Min­is­ter in­ter­venes, in­dus­tri­al fa­tal­i­ties can be re­duced as 40 in­dus­tri­al fa­tal­i­ties had oc­curred be­tween 2021 and 2023 in T&T.

“I am pleased that the Prime Min­is­ter meets with us to dis­cuss ex-gra­tia pay­ments and com­pen­sa­tion. I urge him to fol­low through with the rec­om­men­da­tions from the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry,” Boodram said.

“One key rec­om­men­da­tion is to es­tab­lish a stan­dard for com­mer­cial div­ing which is cur­rent­ly lack­ing in the coun­try. Im­ple­ment­ing a stan­dard is cru­cial, but ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty is equal­ly im­por­tant.”

He not­ed that divers play a cru­cial role in the oil and gas in­dus­try, en­ter­ing dan­ger­ous en­vi­ron­ments for their liveli­hoods.

“It was heart-wrench­ing to know I went out there, an hon­est day’s work, play­ing my part in this na­tion and af­ter the ac­ci­dent, my col­leagues were left to die. And af­ter all of that, we have to fight for com­pen­sa­tion,” Boodram lament­ed.

He added that com­pen­sa­tion was im­por­tant to help every­one.

“Divers face mis­treat­ment from em­ploy­ers, with de­layed pay­ments and rene­go­ti­a­tions af­ter com­plet­ing jobs. This is a wide­spread is­sue in the div­ing com­mu­ni­ty.”

Boodram al­so said div­ing should be ac­ces­si­ble to all.

“Im­ple­ment­ing a stan­dard is one thing, but you al­so have to make it ac­ces­si­ble to peo­ple. Make it af­ford­able for peo­ple to do the com­mer­cial div­ing course in Cana­da. This cost TT$150,000 to $200,000. I want to ask the Prime Min­is­ter if he can arrange with banks to give loans for this course,” Boodram said.

Mean­while, Vanes­sa Kussie, the wife of Rishi Na­gas­sar, al­so wel­comed the meet­ing with Dr Row­ley. She said, “When we speak to the Prime Min­is­ter, we want to dis­cuss bet­ter safe­ty for divers, bet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion dur­ing ac­ci­dents, and prop­er com­pen­sa­tion for all the fam­i­lies and the sur­vivors.”

Last month, At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har called for a $5 mil­lion ex-gra­tia pay­ment to be made to each of the divers’ fam­i­lies as well as Boodram.

The Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union has been stag­ing week­ly protests, de­mand­ing the re­moval of the en­tire Paria Board in­clud­ing Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er Collin Piper, who re­tained their po­si­tions af­ter the trag­ic in­ci­dent.

Boodram, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, Rishi Na­gas­sar, and Yusuf Hen­ry had been do­ing main­te­nance works in­side a 36-inch pipeline on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, when they were sucked in. Boodram made it out alive and told the Paria team that his col­leagues were right be­hind him. How­ev­er, Piper made a de­ci­sion not to send any­one back in­to the pipeline to save the oth­er divers even though pro­fes­sion­als had ar­rived to con­duct a res­cue mis­sion. Fol­low­ing the COE, a rec­om­men­da­tion was made for Paria to face charges of cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.

For­mer labour min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment Rudranath In­dars­ingh has strong­ly crit­i­cised Dr Row­ley for the de­layed de­ci­sion to meet with the lone sur­vivor and fam­i­lies of the de­ceased.

The meet­ing, sched­uled two years af­ter the trag­ic in­ci­dent, is per­ceived as a fla­grant in­sult by In­dars­ingh.