KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing a hands-off ap­proach when it comes to out­stand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for fish­er­folk and those af­fect­ed by Feb­ru­ary’s oil spill in To­ba­go.

Months af­ter pay­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) $50 mil­lion to help with ex­pens­es in­curred from the en­vi­ron­men­tal tragedy, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said en­sur­ing all af­fect­ed per­sons were paid was not his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing there were To­ba­go fish­er­folk still de­mand­ing out­stand­ing pay­ments for work done dur­ing the oil spill, he said the THA did not ac­count for what they did with the funds and he was yet to re­ceive any out­stand­ing claims from THA’s Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance Petal-Ann Roberts.

Dur­ing a Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee (SFC) yes­ter­day, Im­bert said, “I saw com­plaints in To­ba­go from cer­tain fish­er­men groups that said they didn’t re­ceive any mon­ey. That is not our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We sent THA $50 mil­lion. It’s up to the THA to de­cide what to do with that $50 mil­lion. They could have paid con­trac­tors that were em­ployed to clean up the oil. They could have paid fish­er­men. That is their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. My re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is sim­ply to be a con­duit of funds.”

He added, “We did not ask the THA to give us full jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the $50 mil­lion. What we sent to them was just a glob­al es­ti­mate based on an as­sess­ment of what we thought an ini­tial re­lease of funds should be, but we don’t get in­volved with the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of claims. It is not for me to say whether there are out­stand­ing claims or not and I am yet to re­ceive the doc­u­men­ta­tion that I asked for from the Fi­nance Sec­re­tary with re­spect to ad­di­tion­al claims that were not cov­ered by the $50 mil­lion.”

How­ev­er, when Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, he main­tained the $50m was in­suf­fi­cient.

Au­gus­tine said, “The claims from the fish­er­folk tal­lied at a whop­ping $47.3 mil­lion. There is no way $50 mil­lion can pay bills to ser­vice providers and con­trac­tors and then turn around and pay the claims of $47.3 mil­lion. The math is not math­s­ing. From day one, we have said that $50 mil­lion wasn’t enough for the claims.

“Min­is­ter Im­bert knows from the sub­mis­sions of the THA that that $50 mil­lion he sent did not bud­get for claims by fish­er­folk for dam­ages to their prop­er­ty and in­dus­try. “The THA had to pri­ori­tise pay­ing con­trac­tors who we have a le­gal du­ty to pay. As for re­lief fund­ing to the fish­er­folk, we hope to make some ad­di­tion­al sup­port avail­able from this fis­cal notwith­stand­ing not get­ting the al­lo­ca­tion for it.”

Fish­er­folk to get in­ter­na­tion­al aid

All may not be lost for fish­er­folk though, as En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said fish­er­folk could get help from the In­ter­na­tion­al Oil Pol­lu­tion Com­pen­sa­tion (IOPC) fund.

He re­vealed to the SFC that af­ter reach­ing out to and be­ing ac­cept­ed by the IOPC, all Gov­ern­ment’s le­git­i­mate and rea­son­able ex­pen­di­ture will be re­im­bursed by the in­ter­na­tion­al fund.

As such, To­ba­go fish­er­folk can sub­mit their claims to the Min­istry of Fi­nance, who will then for­ward them to Young for sub­mis­sion to the IOPC.

To date, he said, the Gov­ern­ment had sub­mit­ted two claims which were al­ready be­ing processed.

Al­ter­na­tive­ly, fish­er­folk can reach out to the in­ter­na­tion­al body them­selves.

Young said, “The state has reached out to and has suc­ceed­ed in its re­quest to a body called the IOPC, which is an in­ter­na­tion­al body that deals with oil spills. They have ac­ced­ed to our sub­mis­sion that Trinidad and To­ba­go, and in par­tic­u­lar the oil spill in To­ba­go ,should fall with­in that IOPC fund. They have ac­cept­ed and agreed, and it is an or­der of the IOPC that the Gov­ern­ment’s le­git­i­mate and rea­son­able ex­pen­di­ture will be re­im­bursed by the IOPC and that of course in­cludes claims from To­ba­go and the THA.”

He added, “We have al­ready be­gun sub­mit­ting those claims. We’ve made two sub­mis­sions to them al­ready that are be­ing processed. At this stage, they’ve in­di­cat­ed that all is in or­der and we, the tax­pay­ers can ex­pect to re­ceive re­im­burse­ment for le­git­i­mate and rea­son­able claims.”

“The IOPC has ap­point­ed a claims man­ag­er in Trinidad. That claims man­ag­er’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives went to To­ba­go. I be­lieve it may have al­so been in col­lab­o­ra­tion with or at least the con­sent of mem­bers of the THA and they have in­di­cat­ed to the fish­er­men the process. The fish­er­men may al­so be able to make their own in­de­pen­dent claims, in­de­pen­dent of the THA and the Gov­ern­ment. The IOPC is an in­ter­na­tion­al body that deals with thou­sands of these types of claims across the world.”

But Au­gus­tine does not be­lieve the in­ter­na­tion­al fund­ing will in­clude fund­ing for To­ba­go.

He said, “All of the in­ter­na­tion­al fund­ing and grants sent to the coun­try to make pay­ments for oil spill and To­ba­go isn’t con­sid­ered in get­ting some of that fund­ing.”