KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porterkevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of LM­CS divers Yusuf Hen­ry and Fyzal Kur­ban said Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny has not yet re­spond­ed to its re­quest for com­pen­sa­tion but the state com­pa­ny says de­vi­a­tion from the nor­mal process for ad­dress­ing those claims could de­lay a res­o­lu­tion.

Prakash Ra­mad­har said his le­gal team has been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Paria since the fam­i­lies met with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in March and wrote to Paria ask­ing for an ex gra­tia pay­ment to be made for the divers’ deaths. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny has yet to re­spond.

“We are hope­ful they will do the right and de­cent thing. Some things take longer than oth­ers and we will ex­er­cise some pa­tience. If this fails, we pro­ceed with court ac­tion,” he said.

Ra­mad­har said his team might send a re­minder let­ter by Fri­day seek­ing a re­sponse.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, Hen­ry and Kur­ban, along with Christo­pher Boodram, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Na­gas­sar were car­ry­ing out sub­sea main­te­nance on Paria’s Sealine No. 36 Ris­er at Berth No. 6, Pointe-a-Pierre, when they were sucked in­to the 30-inch di­am­e­ter line. Boodram was the on­ly div­er to sur­vive the ac­ci­dent.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Paria said its at­tor­neys have been ex­chang­ing cor­re­spon­dence with the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the fam­i­lies that made com­pen­sa­tion claims.

“The process of ad­dress­ing claims for com­pen­sa­tion re­quires a con­sid­ered and bal­anced ap­proach, tak­ing in­to ac­count all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing LM­CS, the em­ploy­er of the im­pact­ed divers, as well as, fac­tor­ing in in­sur­ance cov­er­age con­sid­er­a­tions.

“To de­vi­ate from that process would not as­sist any in­ter­est­ed par­ties and would more than like­ly lead to a de­lay in find­ing a res­o­lu­tion. Paria and its in­sur­ers re­main com­mit­ted to find­ing a way for­ward as swift­ly and fair­ly as pos­si­ble,” the com­pa­ny said.

Paria added that it is acute­ly aware of the pain, grief and fi­nan­cial hard­ship suf­fered by the fam­i­lies and Boodram as a re­sult of the trag­ic events and is ex­plor­ing all avail­able op­tions to sup­port them. 

Com­pen­sa­tion was one of the rec­om­men­da­tions from the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to tragedy. Chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC and Com­mis­sion­er Gre­go­ry Wil­son al­so found suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence for the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion’s of­fice to con­sid­er charg­ing Paria with cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.