Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har says the new board at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing has raised hopes that a set­tle­ment will be of­fered to the griev­ing rel­a­tives and sur­vivors of the 2022 in­ci­dent.

Ra­mad­har wrote to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie seek­ing a speedy con­clu­sion to the is­sue of com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­lies of the divers of the Paria Pipeline Tragedy, start­ing with the ex gra­tia pay­ment promised by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.

“If pos­si­ble, I’d like the mat­ter to be set­tled like yes­ter­day,” Ra­mad­har told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day. “These fam­i­lies who are in a state of des­o­la­tion need clo­sure and as­sis­tance. We hope they’re giv­en what­ev­er best news is pos­si­ble.”

Ra­mad­har spoke fol­low­ing the re­cent change of the Paria and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Ltd boards. Paria’s new board, head­ed by at­tor­ney Nyree Alphon­so, in­cludes OW­TU Pointe-a-Pierre branch pres­i­dent Christo­pher Jack­man.

The Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union was very out­spo­ken on the Feb­ru­ary 2022 tragedy when LM­CS divers Christo­pher Boodram, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry and Rishi Na­gas­sar were sucked in­to a 30-inch pipeline which they were re­pair­ing at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty. The lone sur­vivor was Boodram.

In the sub­se­quent Com­mis­sion of En­quiry on the is­sue, Alphon­so had rep­re­sent­ed the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers’ Trade Union.

Ra­mad­har rep­re­sents the Kur­ban and Hen­ry fam­i­lies.

“The fact that the boards have changed would give a sense of hope and op­ti­mism for a res­o­lu­tion. The for­mer board showed a cal­lous­ness and an un­car­ing ap­proach to peo­ple’s con­cerns.”

On what lev­el of com­pen­sa­tion is be­ing sought, Ra­mad­har said it’s ex­pect­ed that the new board will ful­fil the promise of a $1 mil­lion ex gra­tia pay­ment, which was made by the past gov­ern­ment and ex-prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young be­fore the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. “So to be­gin with, the ex gra­tia pay­ment of $1 mil­lion and cer­tain­ly to the con­clu­sion of the full com­pen­sa­tion.

“To that end, we wrote cur­rent Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Je­re­mie and we’re await­ing a re­sponse from him re­gard­ing the most ef­fi­cient and time­ly way the mat­ter can be ex­pe­di­tious­ly re­solved.”

Je­re­mie didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on the is­sue.

Be­fore the elec­tion, Ra­mad­har said he wrote to Young about the date when the pay­ment would have been made, but did not get that in­for­ma­tion. He said what was ob­tained, though, was a re­sponse that re­quired some le­gal ad­just­ments to be made, which he had start­ed to pe­ruse.

“We call on the Gov­ern­ment and all in­dus­tries to be very sen­si­tive to en­sure prop­er safe­ty stan­dards and the ma­chin­ery to ef­fect this in the event of an ac­ci­dent,” Ra­mad­har said.

Ex­press­ing con­cern that Paria man­agers re­main em­ployed in the same ca­pac­i­ty as they were in 2022, Ra­mad­har said he per­son­al­ly felt that peo­ple failed dra­mat­i­cal­ly at the high­est lev­el of their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“I don’t know how in good con­science you can con­tin­ue to work there, and if you think you should, the au­thor­i­ties in charge must as­sess if you’re fit for pur­pose.”

Mean­while, Boodram said he was con­fi­dent the is­sue would be re­solved quick­ly due to Black­man and Alphon­so’s pres­ence on Paria’s board.

“Ms Alphon­so did a very good job in the CoE. I’m cer­tain every ef­fort will be made. I still have lows, but with God’s grace, I’m com­ing through,” Boodram added.

Na­gas­sar’s wid­ow, Vanes­sa Kussie, said she would give Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar time to set­tle in­to gov­ern­ment and once done, she was sure the set­tle­ment would be ad­dressed.