Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The sis­ter of Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon, who died on June 18, 2023, af­ter suf­fer­ing se­vere burns in an ex­plo­sion at the Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Ltd (NETL) Gas-to-Liq­uids (GTL), be­lieves some­one should be held ac­count­able now that the re­port in­to his death is pub­lic.

On Wednes­day in the Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Dr Roodal Mooni­lal made pub­lic the re­port in­to the in­ci­dent which re­vealed “in­ad­e­quate lead­er­ship and su­per­vi­sion” led to the in­ci­dent.

The re­port out­lined sev­er­al short­com­ings that led to the ac­ci­dent, high­light­ing in­suf­fi­cient train­ing, in­com­plete pro­to­cols, and the ne­glect of es­sen­tial safe­ty mea­sures.

Ac­cord­ing to the find­ings, 35-year-old Ramkissoon was in the process of de­tach­ing a ni­tro­gen hose and wait­ing for a steam hose when a fire broke out near the con­denser con­nect­ed to the fa­cil­i­ty’s frac­tion­a­tion col­umn.

The re­port not­ed that no di­rec­tive was giv­en to close the valve be­fore de­tach­ing the hose.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ir­reg­u­lar con­di­tions in the wax tank may have caused hy­dro­car­bon vapours to flow back­wards, re­sult­ing in ig­ni­tion.

Com­ment­ing on the re­port be­ing fi­nal­ly re­leased, Al­lan­lane’s sis­ter, Ruth Ramkissoon, said yes­ter­day, “You know, well, it’s a re­lief to know that we got light on that. So, you know, we are feel­ing a bit re­lieved, even though this can­not fill the void.”

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Ramkissoon said now that the re­port has point­ed to short­com­ings on the com­pa­ny’s part, she be­lieves ac­count­abil­i­ty is the next step, even if it means that some­one faces crim­i­nal charges.

“Some­one should be held ac­count­able be­cause it is his life, and it seemed like it was swept un­der the car­pet, un­der the rug, and it wasn’t ad­dressed prop­er­ly. It’s like, you know, like his life didn’t mat­ter to them.”

Af­ter the in­ci­dent, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) is­sued a pro­hi­bi­tion or­der, halt­ing op­er­a­tions at the Ni­Quan plant.

The Min­istry of En­er­gy ini­tial­ly with­held the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, cit­ing le­gal ad­vice and lack of con­sent from Ni­Quan. Ramkissoon’s wid­ow, Sarah Ramkissoon, filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest for the re­port. High Court Judge Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams ruled on June 6, that the min­istry’s re­fusal was un­law­ful and that dis­clo­sure of the re­port was a mat­ter of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est.

Ruth Ramkissoon said the fam­i­ly was des­per­ate to know the truth, how­ev­er, she be­lieves fate guid­ed the process.

“We knew in God’s tim­ing every­thing would have come out, be­cause we re­al­ly want­ed the truth. We were able to, not heal ful­ly, but con­tin­ue to trust that we would get jus­tice, we would get the truth.”

She said the fam­i­ly is still strug­gling to cope with Al­lan­lane’s death.

“We are miss­ing him a lot. The mem­o­ries of him are still alive in our hearts. And we be­lieve that he is with his mak­er and God has com­fort­ed us and still com­fort­ing us. So it is hard, but not as when it had hap­pened. As I say, we are heal­ing. And we know we can­not get him back, but he is with his mak­er.”