Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The fam­i­lies of at least two of the four divers, who per­ished in a tragedy at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty in 2022, have brought claims against their for­mer em­ploy­er un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act. 

This week, the Ju­di­cia­ry is­sued a no­tice of the claim made against Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (LM­CS) by rel­a­tives of Fyzal Kur­ban. 

The no­tice, pub­lished in dai­ly news­pa­pers, re­quest­ed that de­pen­dants of Kur­ban ap­pear be­fore a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer, who serves as a com­mis­sion­er, on Ju­ly 7. 

De­pen­dants were ad­vised to pro­vide doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence of their re­la­tion­ship to Kur­ban. 

It (the no­tice) al­so stat­ed that the ap­pli­ca­tion would be de­ter­mined just­ly by the ju­di­cial of­fi­cer even if de­pen­dents fail to ap­pear at the hear­ing. 

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing Kur­ban’s fam­i­ly, con­firmed that a sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tion was made on be­half of Yusuf Hen­ry’s daugh­ter, for which an iden­ti­cal no­tice is ex­pect­ed to be is­sued. 

Guardian Me­dia could not con­firm if sim­i­lar ap­pli­ca­tions were filed on be­half of rel­a­tives of Rishi Na­gas­sar or lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram. 

The leg­is­la­tion pro­vides for com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to work­ers or their fam­i­lies if they die or are left per­ma­nent­ly dis­abled dur­ing an in­ci­dent while work­ing. 

In cas­es where a dead work­man leaves be­hind de­pen­dants who were whol­ly de­pen­dent on his earn­ings, the em­ploy­er is re­quired to pay a lump sum of 36 months’ earn­ings. 

The ju­di­cial of­fi­cers would as­sess an ap­pro­pri­ate por­tion of the max­i­mum amount if the dead work­man does not have any de­pen­dants or if his/her de­pen­dants were not whol­ly de­pen­dent on him/her. 

Work­ers, who sur­vive but are left to­tal­ly or par­tial­ly dis­abled can po­ten­tial­ly re­ceive a larg­er pay­out based on their de­pen­dants and the ex­tent of their dis­abil­i­ty. 

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, divers Boodram, Kur­ban, Na­gas­sar, Hen­ry, and Kaz­im Ali Jr, whose fa­ther owns LM­CS, were sucked in­to the 30-inch-di­am­e­ter pipeline they were per­form­ing main­te­nance work at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty. 

All were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured but Boodram man­aged to make his way to the en­trance of the pipeline and was res­cued.

LM­CS of­fi­cials were blocked from at­tempt­ing to res­cue their col­leagues. 

Three of the divers’ bod­ies were re­cov­ered on Feb­ru­ary 28, while Na­gas­sar’s was re­cov­ered the fol­low­ing day. 

The Cab­i­net led by for­mer prime min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed a five-mem­ber team to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent but even­tu­al­ly ap­point­ed a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) due to pub­lic crit­i­cism. 

In its re­port, the com­mis­sion, chaired by King’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch, pre­sent­ed sev­er­al dozen rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ing charges un­der the OSH Act. 

Last Sep­tem­ber, Paria’s gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed, its ter­mi­nal op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Collin Piper, LM­CS di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr, and the com­pa­nies were slapped with a se­ries of charges un­der the OSH Act.  

Last year, LM­CS’s le­gal team wrote to lawyers for Boodram and his de­ceased col­leagues’ fam­i­lies sug­gest­ing that they should di­rect their le­gal ac­tion to Paria. 

LM­CS’s lawyers dis­missed any im­pu­ta­tion of cul­pa­bil­i­ty at­tached to it by the com­mis­sion and claimed that Paria should be held sole­ly li­able for what tran­spired. 

They sug­gest­ed that even if their clients were par­tial­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ini­tial ac­ci­dent as al­leged, Paria’s han­dling of the re­sponse ab­solved it. 

LM­CS did ad­mit that they owe their work­ers’ fam­i­lies and Boodram com­pen­sa­tion un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act but claimed that pay­ments could not be made un­til its claim to its in­sur­er is de­ter­mined. 

The com­pa­ny claimed that it pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion over the is­sue af­ter it made a claim short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.  

In Oc­to­ber, Boodram and Na­gas­sar’s fam­i­ly filed neg­li­gence law­suits against Paria and LM­CS. 

Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s fam­i­lies were ex­pect­ed to do the same. 

In ear­ly April, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced that the Cab­i­net had de­cid­ed to make a one-time ex-gra­tia pay­ment of $1 mil­lion each to Boodram and his col­leagues’ fam­i­lies with­out ad­mit­ting li­a­bil­i­ty. 

He claimed that the de­lay in the set­tle­ment of the cas­es was due to in­sur­ers for LM­CS and Paria dis­agree­ing on which com­pa­ny was li­able. 

“I told Cab­i­net I was no longer pre­pared to have these com­pa­nies frus­trate the fam­i­lies,” Young said. 

“I wish it could have been done ear­li­er and that the com­pa­nies and the in­sur­ers took the le­gal route and set­tled it but that hasn’t been done,” he added. 

While speak­ing to re­porters at the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for her Cab­i­net, last month, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie said they would need to in­ves­ti­gate whether the pay­ments were made by the for­mer gov­ern­ment. 

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar promised that Je­re­mie and her Gov­ern­ment would seek to as­sist the fam­i­lies, she not­ed that com­pen­sa­tion was a com­pli­cat­ed le­gal is­sue which would take time to ad­dress.