RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For­mer OSH in­spec­tor Safraz Ali is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to lay the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry Re­port in­to the Paria Div­ing Tragedy in Par­lia­ment as soon as pos­si­ble so that the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency and the po­lice could pre­fer charges against cul­pa­ble par­ties with­in the next six months.

Draw­ing ref­er­ence to Sec­tion 91 (2) of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act, Ali said the OSH Agency has six months to lay charges af­ter the CoE or in­quest re­port is sub­mit­ted.

Say­ing time is tick­ing away, Ali added that it is in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est to make the re­port pub­lic. He ex­pressed wor­ry that the re­port will be sani­tised or hid­den from the pub­lic, not­ing that if six months pass­es, the OS­HA will be un­able to press charges.

“It is clear that the OSH Act has put a time lim­it af­ter the re­port is pro­duced, there­fore the time is tick­ing away now,” he said.

Draw­ing at­ten­tion to Sec­tion 91(2), Ali not­ed the re­port’s sig­nif­i­cance in iden­ti­fy­ing breach­es of the law, par­tic­u­lar­ly the OSH Act, al­low­ing the OSH agency to utilise its ev­i­dence for charges against re­spon­si­ble par­ties.

“We are call­ing for this re­port to be made pub­lic, prefer­ably laid in Par­lia­ment, so that the rel­e­vant reg­u­la­to­ry en­force­ment bod­ies will then have ac­cess to the re­port and if there is a safe­ty and health of­fence spec­i­fied in the re­port, the OSH agency can use the ev­i­dence in the re­port to ini­ti­ate charges to be laid. If there is crim­i­nal con­duct in the re­port, the TTPS could do their part based on ad­vice from the DPP and al­so lay charges,” Ali ex­plained.

He said both the OSH and TTPS have ini­ti­at­ed sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tions cul­mi­nat­ing in the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry which is recog­nised in the OSH Act for fa­tal­i­ties in­ves­ti­ga­tion and sub­se­quent charges.

“The pub­lic in­ter­est is served once the rel­e­vant law en­force­ment can ini­ti­ate charges against par­ties who con­tra­vened the rel­e­vant sec­tions of the law. It is im­por­tant that we do this,” he added.

Stress­ing the im­por­tance of trans­paren­cy and pub­lic in­ter­est, Ali said he hoped the un­sani­tised pre­sen­ta­tion of the re­port would be laid in Par­lia­ment.

On Thurs­day, Jerome Lynch, KC, chair of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, sub­mit­ted the re­port to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

Cheryl Lala, the Pres­i­dent’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions ad­vis­er told Guardian Me­dia, “Her Ex­cel­len­cy re­ceived the re­port and sent it the same day to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

On Fri­day at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har said he in­tends to write to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ask­ing for a copy of the CoE re­port.

Since the com­ple­tion of the CoE, there has been a pub­lic out­cry for the re­port to be made pub­lic.

Con­cerns have been raised as to why the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims had not re­ceived a cent of com­pen­sa­tion from Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny or Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS) Ltd.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, last year, four divers, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Yusuf Hen­ry died af­ter dis­ap­pear­ing in­to a pipeline dur­ing an un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance ex­er­cise. A fifth div­er Christo­pher Boodram sur­vived. LM­CS com­pa­ny had hired the divers to ex­e­cute main­te­nance works on Sealine 36 sit­u­at­ed be­tween Berth 5 and 6 when the tragedy oc­curred.