RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

While joy­ous­ly an­nounc­ing the UNC’s slate for the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions on Au­gust 14, deputy po­lit­i­cal leader David Lee brought a som­bre tone to the event as he ex­pressed his con­do­lences for the trag­ic death of Al­lan Ramkissoon, a Massy En­er­gy work­er who lost his life in a flash fire at the Ni­Quan plant.

The UNC pre­sent­ed 110 of the 141 can­di­dates to con­test the elec­tions on its be­half. The re­main­ing 31 can­di­dates came from UNC’s ac­com­mo­da­tion with Gary Grif­fith's NTA.

Ad­dress­ing a crowd of en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers at the Na­pari­ma Col­lege au­di­to­ri­um on Mon­day night, Lee urged Ni­Quan to dis­close the re­sults of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent, which oc­curred on June 15.

“On be­half of the peo­ple of Pointe-a-Pierre, I have a mes­sage for Ains­ley Gill, the head of Ni­Quan, and the Prime Min­is­ter,” Lee de­clared, elic­it­ing ap­plause from the au­di­ence.” As long as Ni­Quan con­tin­ues to op­er­ate on the Petrotrin es­tate, which be­longs to the peo­ple of this na­tion, you will be ac­count­able to the peo­ple of this na­tion.

“As long as Ni­Quan con­tin­ues to re­ceive the gas that be­longs to the peo­ple of this na­tion, you will be ac­count­able to the peo­ple of this na­tion.”

Lee said the Op­po­si­tion has vowed to per­sis­tent­ly de­nounce and re­ject the lack of trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing Ramkissoon’s un­time­ly demise.

“I want to re­mind Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley and Stu­art Young that your du­ty is not to Ains­ley Gill and the Ni­Quan Board, your du­ty is to pro­tect the peo­ple of this na­tion, which you have failed to do,” Lee as­sert­ed.

“Ni­Quan is no or­di­nary pri­vate en­ti­ty. Ni­Quan ex­ists to­day be­cause the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment gave them the bil­lion-dol­lar GTL plant at a pep­per­corn rate. Ni­Quan func­tions to­day be­cause the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment en­sured they would get gas from the Min­is­ter’s share.”

Lee high­light­ed the deep con­nec­tions be­tween Ni­Quan and the gov­ern­ment, ques­tion­ing whether the Gov­ern­ment had as­sist­ed in cov­er­ing up the find­ings of the re­port to al­low the com­pa­ny to re­sume op­er­a­tions with­out ad­e­quate­ly ad­dress­ing the plant’s is­sues.

Ear­li­er this week, Mal­colm Wells, Ni­Quan’s Vice Pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Af­fairs, pledged that the com­pa­ny would pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive sum­ma­ry of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion’s find­ings.

Al­lan Ramkissoon, a pip­efit­ter em­ployed by Massy En­er­gy En­gi­neered So­lu­tions Ltd (MEES), trag­i­cal­ly lost his life on Fa­ther’s Day. Since then, in­ves­ti­ga­tions have been ini­ti­at­ed by both the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) and the Min­istry of En­er­gy. The min­istry has as­sem­bled a team to ex­am­ine the in­ci­dent and de­ter­mine how Ramkissoon was ex­posed to the chem­i­cals that re­sult­ed in se­vere burns to his body.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the au­di­ence were deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Jear­lean John.