Even as the fam­i­ly of lit­tle An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie pre­pares to say farewell to her to­mor­row, the ques­tion that still lingers in the minds of To­bag­o­ni­ans, and Trinida­di­ans alike, re­mains what mech­a­nisms Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and his ex­ec­u­tive are look­ing at to bring some sem­blance of or­der to the jet ski in­dus­try on the is­land.

In­deed, one week af­ter the in­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point, lead­ing to the un­for­tu­nate and un­time­ly death of sev­en-year-old Jo­gie, cit­i­zens are still wait­ing to hear a well-de­tailed plan from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly aimed at reg­u­lat­ing the in­dus­try to pre­vent any such fu­ture tragedies.

In fact, we have been at this junc­ture be­fore. Sev­er­al in­ci­dents in­volv­ing wa­ter­craft, in­clud­ing some at Pi­geon Point, have led to ro­bust dis­cus­sion of what is need­ed to en­sure this as­pect of the tourism in­dus­try is al­lowed to con­tin­ue as one of the eco­nom­ic pil­lars on the is­land.

In the past, the THA has al­so been found li­able for ac­ci­dents at Pi­geon Point. In one par­tic­u­lar case in 2007, teenag­er Yanik Ques­nel and his Span­ish girl­friend Ana Car­oli­na Bar­ry-La­so were ploughed in­to by a pirogue op­er­a­tor off the same beach, lead­ing to a mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar pay­out. In that case, Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones ruled that the THA failed “to take steps to pre­vent boats and oth­er wa­ter­craft from com­ing so close to the shore as to pose a risk of dam­age to sea-bathers.”

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, plans and pledges to reg­u­late the in­dus­try bet­ter af­ter that in­ci­dent fell by the way­side and what holds to this day is an un­reg­u­lat­ed in­dus­try that al­lows those mem­bers of the fra­ter­ni­ty who con­duct them­selves in an un­pro­fes­sion­al man­ner to slip through the cracks, lead­ing to sce­nar­ios like the lat­est one, which has again trau­ma­tised the so­ci­ety.

To be frank, noth­ing short of prop­er mon­i­tor­ing and reg­u­la­tion of jet skis and oth­er wa­ter­craft will suf­fice at this time. But it should not have tak­en lit­tle An­gel­i­ca’s death to prompt such ac­tion.

The op­er­a­tion of a jet ski is a very se­ri­ous ac­tiv­i­ty which, if not done prop­er­ly, can lead to cost­ly and, in this case, fa­tal in­ci­dents. Re­ports, com­ing even from with­in the fra­ter­ni­ty, sug­gest a flout­ing of what should be rou­tine safe­ty pro­to­cols by some op­er­a­tors.

From all re­ports, in Jo­gie’s case there were al­so ear­ly warn­ing signs that the op­er­a­tor was break­ing sev­er­al safe­ty pro­to­cols while op­er­at­ing his craft.

In the af­ter­math of the trag­ic in­ci­dent, there is al­so the sug­ges­tion by jet ski op­er­a­tors that they should have ex­clu­sive use of the Buc­coo beach as part of a plan that seeks to put dis­tance be­tween them and sea bathers. But truth be told, no mat­ter where they are lo­cat­ed, there is an el­e­ment of dan­ger that will have to be ad­dressed through safe­ty pro­to­cols.

Need­less to say, while the To­ba­go tourism prod­uct is pro­mot­ed as a rus­tic, green and serene get­away, we be­lieve the THA must now grab the bull by the horns and en­sure a pro­fes­sion­al mod­ern-day sys­tem is im­ple­ment­ed. This should fea­ture a pro­gramme where­by all jet ski and wa­ter­craft op­er­a­tors on the is­land are reg­is­tered, mon­i­tored by pro­fes­sion­als hired specif­i­cal­ly for that pur­pose, and laws en­act­ed or re­vised to reg­u­late what they do, en­sur­ing there are reper­cus­sions if they fall out of line.

The To­ba­go tourism prod­uct is too crit­i­cal to get an­oth­er black eye from an in­ci­dent at sea. We al­so be­lieve this would be a fit­ting way to ho­n­our lit­tle An­gel­i­ca’s life.