The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) is call­ing for a full, in­de­pen­dent and trans­par­ent in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Sun­day’s boat­ing col­li­sion off Can­nings Point, Ch­aguara­mas, which left five peo­ple miss­ing.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, NATUC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Michael An­nisette said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion must be free from “in­ter­fer­ence, in­flu­ence or favouritism.”

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion was con­cerned about al­le­ga­tions that a child, re­port­ed­ly about 12 years old, may have been op­er­at­ing one of the ves­sels in­volved in the col­li­sion.

An­nisette stressed that the al­le­ga­tion re­mained un­ver­i­fied but said in­ves­ti­ga­tors must es­tab­lish who was op­er­at­ing both ves­sels, whether any­one per­mit­ted a mi­nor to con­trol ei­ther boat and who was re­spon­si­ble for su­per­vi­sion.

He al­so called for in­ves­ti­ga­tors to de­ter­mine whether the ves­sel op­er­a­tors had the nec­es­sary train­ing, qual­i­fi­ca­tions and le­gal au­tho­ri­sa­tion, and whether both ves­sels met reg­is­tra­tion, li­cens­ing and safe­ty re­quire­ments.

An­nisette said any child in­volved must be treat­ed with dig­ni­ty, pro­tect­ed from pub­lic ha­rass­ment and af­ford­ed all safe­guards re­quired by law.

He al­so called for the au­thor­i­ties to in­ves­ti­gate claims that pho­tographs, videos or so­cial me­dia posts al­leged­ly show­ing the child op­er­at­ing boats on pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions had been re­moved.

“The re­moval of a post, on its own, es­tab­lish­es nei­ther wrong­do­ing nor an at­tempt to con­ceal ev­i­dence,” he said.

An­nisette urged the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Coast Guard and po­lice to ex­am­ine the ap­plic­a­ble mar­itime laws and de­ter­mine whether any of­fences or breach­es oc­curred.

He al­so called on the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture to clar­i­fy the sta­tus of its draft Ship­ping (Small Boat) Pol­i­cy, which pro­pos­es stronger pro­vi­sions for ves­sel reg­is­tra­tion, op­er­a­tor li­cens­ing and safe­ty in­spec­tions.

“The fam­i­lies de­serve the truth, and they de­serve to hear di­rect­ly from the au­thor­i­ties as the in­ves­ti­ga­tion pro­gress­es,” An­nisette said.

He said NATUC would con­tin­ue press­ing for ac­count­abil­i­ty and stronger en­force­ment of mar­itime safe­ty stan­dards.