Renu­ka Singh

End­ed be­fore it be­gan.

The com­mit­tee out­lined to in­ves­ti­gate what led to the deaths of four divers at the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty has been quashed.

Speak­ing dur­ing Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter on Tues­day, Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy to can­cel the com­mit­tee af­ter the sur­prise res­ig­na­tion yes­ter­day of mem­ber Eu­gene Tiah. The Prime Min­is­ter said in­stead, he will be call­ing for a three-mem­ber Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.

“I have to­day in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, on be­half of the Cab­i­net, to can­cel the arrange­ment that was made pub­lic and there­fore there would be no five-man com­mit­tee of the ex­perts that were made pub­lic,” Row­ley said.

He said the for­eign ex­perts said they were al­so no longer need­ed for the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Be­cause even be­fore they had done the job, the pop­u­la­tion had been so riled up in­to not ac­cept­ing any work that they have done, that it is a waste of time now,” he said.

Row­ley said the com­mit­tee was tasked with de­ter­min­ing the li­a­bil­i­ty and what hap­pened that led to the deaths of divers Yusuf Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban and Rishi Nages­sar on Feb­ru­ary 25.

“We have to can­cel that and we are go­ing to have a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry be­cause ap­par­ent­ly, that is what would sat­is­fy,” he said.

Like En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Row­ley blamed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress for its at­tack on Tiah as the rea­son be­hind the col­lapse of the com­mit­tee. He ar­gued he would have to look for peo­ple from Mars just to sat­is­fy the UNC.

“Where are we go­ing to find peo­ple to serve on this com­mit­tee? Who in this coun­try, in the en­er­gy sec­tor, are we go­ing to find? An en­er­gy sec­tor that is owned by the gov­ern­ment and has been con­sis­tent­ly un­der gov­ern­ment con­trol. Where you go­ing to find them?” he asked.

“Help me out here,” he added.

He said ac­cord­ing to the UNC, with a CoE, peo­ple can be “called and sum­moned and cross-ex­am­ine” those in­volved.

Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment would still seek out in­ter­na­tion­al ex­per­tise.

“No­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go who know any­body in the Gov­ern­ment, if your grand­moth­er, cousin, ne­nen, neigh­bour is in­volved, it’s to cov­er-up,” he said.

In Tiah’s per­son­al state­ment of res­ig­na­tion, he hint­ed that the at­tacks by the UNC played a part in his de­ci­sion.

Row­ley dou­bled down on that, liken­ing the UNC’s ac­tions against Tiah to their at­tacks on one mem­ber of the new Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion who had in­di­rect links to him.

“The En­er­gy Cham­ber picked their per­son, sent the name to the Cab­i­net, the Cab­i­net ap­proved their per­son, and Mr Eu­gene Tiah sud­den­ly be­comes a tar­get for the Op­po­si­tion,” Row­ley said.

“As far as the Op­po­si­tion is con­cerned, he go­ing to come there to cov­er-up for Paria and the Gov­ern­ment.

“As a re­sult of the be­hav­iour of the Op­po­si­tion, slan­der­ing peo­ple, at­tack­ing peo­ple, the En­er­gy Cham­ber has lost its per­son, Mr Tiah has pulled out, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies have said, well, I don’t think they need our help and of course, I have come to the con­clu­sion that noth­ing that the Gov­ern­ment does in ap­point­ing any com­mit­tee un­less we ap­point Gopeesingh, Ramdeen, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and who­ev­er else, noth­ing that the Gov­ern­ment does will sat­is­fy the pop­u­la­tion that it has been prop­er­ly done and the find­ings have been a fair and ac­cu­rate as­sess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion.”

The PM said he de­cid­ed not to ask any­one to serve on the com­mit­tee again out of fear they would refuse.

Last Thurs­day, Young an­nounced that Tiah would be part of the com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate the trag­ic deaths of the divers while they were work­ing on Berth 6 at the Paria Fu­el fa­cil­i­ty in Pointe-a-Pierre on Feb­ru­ary 25.

Young said then that en­er­gy ex­pert Gre­go­ry Wil­son would al­so be a part of the com­mit­tee and it would be chaired by at­tor­ney Shiv Shar­ma.

Tiah’s res­ig­na­tion yes­ter­day came even as the oth­er promised ex­perts from Shell and BP were yet to be se­lect­ed.

Since his ap­point­ment was an­nounced, Tiah had faced crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and hint­ed at the an­i­mus di­rect­ed to him in his brief per­son­al state­ment yes­ter­day.

“It ap­pears that the good of the coun­try is sub­servient to the shenani­gans of a few. I have thus tak­en the de­ci­sion to with­draw from the in­ves­ti­gat­ing com­mit­tee,” Tiah said.

“I be­lieve that no time should be lost in as­cer­tain­ing the facts that led to this tragedy. Rec­om­men­da­tions aris­ing from the in­ci­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion need to be swift­ly im­ple­ment­ed and lessons learned shared through­out the in­dus­try.”

He added, “I wish the com­mit­tee mem­bers God­speed with this oner­ous and supreme­ly im­por­tant task.”

But while he was guard­ed in his rea­sons for the res­ig­na­tion, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Young had no such reser­va­tions.

In a me­dia re­lease, Young placed the blame whol­ly on the Op­po­si­tion.

He said that he took “care­ful note of the per­son­al at­tacks” by the leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

“These per­son­al, un­war­rant­ed and un­jus­ti­fied at­tacks on in­de­pen­dent per­sons and in­ter­na­tion­al in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ties is dis­turb­ing and de­struc­tive to our coun­try’s in­ter­ests,” Young said.

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