Prakash Ra­mad­har, the at­tor­ney rep­re­sent­ing two of the five fam­i­lies in­volved in the Paria div­ing tragedy, is hop­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie will in­di­cate this week when the process for com­pen­sa­tion will be­gin.

Ra­mad­har, who acts on be­half of the fam­i­lies of Fyzal Kur­ban and Yusuf Hen­ry, said if no word comes from Je­re­mie this week, then he will write to him to trig­ger the process. Ra­mad­har said a speedy res­o­lu­tion is the best way for­ward for all in­volved.

On April 3, 2024, then prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced that the then cab­i­net had de­cid­ed to make an ex-gra­tia pay­ment of $1 mil­lion each to the fam­i­lies of the four de­ceased (Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Yusuf Hen­ry, Rishi Na­gas­sar) and the lone sur­vivor, Christo­pher Boodram. This was not done be­fore the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion was vot­ed out of of­fice.

Dur­ing her first post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing on May 8, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fered to get me­di­a­tors in­volved to deal with the is­sue of com­pen­sa­tion. It's a move that Ra­mad­har hails as a bet­ter op­tion com­pared to what Young of­fered, as he said it would in­volve a strong lev­el of trans­paren­cy and the ap­proval of the court sys­tem.

Ra­mad­har said, now that they are aware of the process, all that re­mains is to un­der­stand when it will be­gin.

“So, we are in the process of await­ing two things. One, a let­ter from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, if we shan't have that with­in a week, we shall be writ­ing to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to trig­ger that process so that we can reach some lev­el of com­fort for the fam­i­lies in the short­est time frame avail­able,” Ra­mad­har said.

At­tempts to con­tact Je­re­mie yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful.

But Ra­mad­har said a lev­el of ur­gency is re­quired as the fam­i­lies have been suf­fer­ing. He told Guardian Me­dia that he hopes the fam­i­lies are of­fered more than the ini­tial $ 1 mil­lion.

“Re­mem­ber, this is an ex-gra­tia pay­ment and there's a promise of one mil­lion dol­lars. It is my hum­ble view that the fam­i­ly should be en­ti­tled to far more than that, hav­ing re­gard to not just the event it­self, but the pain and suf­fer­ing for each in­di­vid­ual mem­ber that would have trau­ma­tised them from then till now and prob­a­bly for the rest of their lives, un­less there is some lev­el of help they can re­ceive, which could be quite ex­pen­sive,” he said.

Asked if there is an op­tion where a par­tial pay­ment is of­fered now with more down the road, Ra­mad­har said, “That is why we want to speak with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, be­cause there is a man­i­fest op­por­tu­ni­ty to do ex­act­ly what you are talk­ing about.”

He added, “So if it is that we could achieve at least some part pay­ment, it would bring im­me­di­ate or at least close to im­me­di­ate com­fort to them. If it is, how­ev­er, that we can­not achieve a glob­al set­tle­ment fig­ure, then of course we will have no choice but to pur­sue the mat­ter be­fore the courts.”

Ra­mad­har said he is aware of the grim eco­nom­ic out­look the Prime Min­is­ter said her gov­ern­ment in­her­it­ed from the for­mer PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, but he said he is con­fi­dent the mon­ey will be found.

“This is a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar econ­o­my. And I know the present Gov­ern­ment has in­di­cat­ed that they will be cre­at­ing new streams of in­come, which is a must do for our so­ci­ety. And in the largest scheme of things, five mil­lion or 20 mil­lion for some­thing as aw­ful as this. I am sure they'd be able to source the funds for that.”

Ra­mad­har is hop­ing this mat­ter can set a prece­dent with re­spect to pay­ments made to those hurt or killed in the work­place. He lament­ed that for too long, "pal­try" sums have been award­ed by lo­cal courts.

“Too many times work­ers and the av­er­age cit­i­zen will lose a leg or an arm or what­ev­er and the court award is a cou­ple hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars. And I have al­ways looked and won­dered how it is pos­si­ble for some of the awards for slan­der and li­bel to be clos­er to a mil­lion when a man would be in­ca­pac­i­tat­ed for the rest of his life work­ing, most­ly labour­ing, to earn a re­al liveli­hood the way he has. The awards are out of sync, and we need to fix this. So this could be that case.”

Ra­mad­har sought to un­der­score that he is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies in a pro-bono agree­ment and will not be col­lect­ing a cent from their pay­ments.