Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Put the Paria div­ing tragedy vic­tims’ fam­i­lies be­fore per­son­al friend­ships.

That’s the call from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who wants Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to speak on the Paria Com­mis­sion of En­quiry re­port and to fire Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed’s board.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s queried why the re­port was “sup­pressed” con­sid­er­ing that the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for le­gal ac­tion by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty on the Paria tragedy ex­pires on Feb­ru­ary 24, and she wants Gov­ern­ment to pay the fam­i­lies the same amount which the CoE at­tor­neys re­ceived.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did so yes­ter­day, in­creas­ing pres­sure on the Gov­ern­ment to fire Paria’s board fol­low­ing the re­lease of the CoE re­port in­to the Feb­ru­ary 2022 tragedy which oc­curred in a Paria Fu­el pipeline.

It re­sult­ed in the deaths of LM­CS divers Kaz­im Ali Jnr, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry and Rishi Na­gas­sar. A fifth div­er, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived. The divers were re­pair­ing the 30-inch pipeline when they were sucked in.

The CoE re­port rec­om­mend­ed Paria be charged with cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter. Find­ings al­so in­clud­ed that there was ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute Paria man­ag­er Col­in Piper and LM­CS head Kaz­im Ali Snr and their re­spec­tive firms for of­fences un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act. The re­port stat­ed that the dead­line to file such pro­ceed­ings at the In­dus­tri­al Court was two years af­ter the in­ci­dent—Feb­ru­ary 24—but rec­om­mend­ed this be ex­tend­ed to three years.

Yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, via a state­ment wel­comed the CoE’s find­ings.

“We call up­on PM Kei­th Row­ley to fire the board of Di­rec­tors im­me­di­ate­ly, name­ly: New­man K George (chair­man), Fayad Ali, Avie Chadee, Pe­ter Clarke, Eu­stace Nan­cis, Reza Sal­im,” she said.

“Tax­pay­ers fund­ed this Com­mis­sion of En­quiry and gen­uine, mean­ing­ful ac­tion must be tak­en or else the Prime Min­is­ter would be guilty of the worst form of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy and de­ceit.

“PM Row­ley must put the coun­try and the be­reaved fam­i­lies first and his per­son­al friend­ship with PNM friends and fi­nanciers sec­ond, for once.

“It’s time to put the pub­lic in­ter­est be­fore the golf club, due to the se­ri­ous na­ture of the find­ings and the trag­ic loss of life.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so raised the in­put of Row­ley’s “per­son­al lawyer” Michael Quam­i­na, SC, who is chair­man of Paria’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Lim­it­ed.

“His role in this fi­as­co should not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed and al­so jus­ti­fies his im­me­di­ate re­moval, giv­en his fail­ure to in­ter­vene and take de­ci­sive ac­tion to save the lives of these men.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called for En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to be fired, not­ing he was the line min­is­ter for the com­pa­ny.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “PM Row­ley must make a pub­lic state­ment to ex­plain the steps his Gov­ern­ment in­tends to take to en­sure this mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar ex­pen­sive CoE wouldn’t go to waste. Mere­ly pass­ing the re­port to the DPP isn’t enough. It amounts to pass­ing the buck.”

She not­ed that the Oc­cu­pa­tion Safe­ty and Health Act con­tem­plates two dif­fer­ent forms of le­gal ac­tion.

“Whilst the DPP can bring crim­i­nal charges, OS­HA’s al­so em­pow­ered to take le­gal ac­tion,” Per­sad- Bisses­sar said, cit­ing the act where an in­spec­tor may pros­e­cute any com­plaint aris­ing un­der the act.

She said Gov­ern­ment can­not di­vorce it­self from OS­HA be­cause the Labour Min­is­ter ob­vi­ous­ly would have con­sult­ed and sought the PM’s ap­proval on those Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed to serve on OS­HA.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “The Prime Min­is­ter must, there­fore, come clean and tell T&T what the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy po­si­tion is, giv­en the fact that the Com­mis­sion has red-flagged the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od for le­gal ac­tion by OS­HA, which ex­pires 24th Feb­ru­ary 2024. Dr Row­ley must al­so ex­plain why, in the knowl­edge that this dead­line was fast ap­proach­ing, he sup­pressed this re­port and took two months to lay the re­port in Par­lia­ment.

“Was Dr Row­ley try­ing to run down the clock to save the skin of his friends New­man George, Michael Quam­i­na, Stu­art Young, when it was clear prompt ac­tion was re­quired, and the walls were clos­ing in?”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said the CoE cost tax­pay­ers ap­prox­i­mate­ly $16 mil­lion in fees, de­tailed what she claimed were fees were paid, in­clud­ing to Paria’s at­tor­neys. (See box)

She added, “This CoE was noth­ing more than a feed­ing fren­zy for PNM lawyers, friends, and fi­nanciers. Whilst lawyers have fat­tened their pock­ets, the poor vic­tims and their chil­dren haven’t re­ceived one red cent from Gov­ern­ment.”

Main­tain­ing a CoE wasn’t nec­es­sary to see that Paria was guilty of gross neg­li­gence, she added, “We, there­fore, call up­on the Gov­ern­ment to al­lo­cate a sim­i­lar sum that they’ve paid the lawyers for the CoE and dis­trib­ute it to the fam­i­lies. Dr Row­ley must in­struct Paria to ac­cept li­a­bil­i­ty for neg­li­gence and com­mence ne­go­ti­a­tions so these fam­i­lies, who en­dured pain, suf­fer­ing, and trau­ma in the af­ter­math of their loss, could get their just due...”

Lawyers’ fees to­talling $16,932,229.30

UNC leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­tailed Paria’s le­gal team of: Gilbert Pe­ter­son SC, Ja­son Mootoo, Gre­tel Baird, Thane Pierre, Se­bas­t­ian Pe­ter­son.

She claimed four sets of le­gal fees were billed over Au­gust 2, 2022 to March 20, 2023 (in sums rang­ing from $1.1 mil­lion to $1.9m) and to­talled $6,460,732.73

She al­so claimed fees paid to the Com­mis­sion­ers and the le­gal team (ju­nior coun­sel and se­nior le­gal coun­sel and in­struct­ing at­tor­ney, who she didn’t name) to­talled $5,584,274.31. That ranged in sums from $400,000 to $2.3m.

She claimed out­stand­ing fees to the Com­mis­sion­er and the le­gal team to­talled $4,887,222.25. That ranged in fees from $582,22.28 to $$1.8m).