KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
With the Commission of Enquiry (CoE) into the Paria/LMCS tragedy expected to produce its report by April 30, Celisha Kurban, widow of fallen diver Fyzal Kurban, hopes those responsible for not rescuing her husband would no longer have their jobs. "I want us to get justice and what belongs to us. And I hope that the people in charge of not having the rescue get what is coming to them. They should not have any more jobs," Kurban told Sunday Guardian yesterday.
Fyzal was one of five Land and Marine Contracting Services (LMCS) divers carrying out subsea maintenance at Paria Fuel Company Ltd on February 25, 2022. A differential pressure (Delta P) event created a vortex that sucked Fyzal, Christopher Boodram, Yusuf Henry, Kazim Ali Jr and Rishi Nagassar into the 30-inch Sealine No 36 at Paria's Berth No 6 in the Pointe-a-Pierre harbour. Boodram escaped after swimming up the pipe, but the other injured divers died awaiting rescues.
Kurban sat in a few of the evidentiary hearings at the International Waterfront Centre, Port-of-Spain. She also followed the proceedings by reading the newspapers and watching television news. While she is satisfied with the CoE and believes it was fair, it was like reliving the tragic incidents. She said it did not bring her family any closure. "It was nothing new for us; we had known all that the public learns right now. It is just that everything got read out to the public to feel, hear and understand. We coped with it as normal. It did not affect us no how. It is just something we live through already, and we live through it again."
As the evidentiary hearings ended on Friday, CoE counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, said his legal team was researching the law regarding criminal prosecution against those involved in the incidents that led to the divers' deaths. Maharaj recommended that the CoE call for the Occupational Health and Safety Authority to prosecute both Paria and LMCS for breaches of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
He also noted that a provision of the OSH Act states that where a person is killed, injured or develops a disease because their employer breached the act, the employer should be liable to a fine of $100,000 or three years’ salary for the employee, whichever is greater. LMCS called for systematic changes at Paria, and the state-owned company sought to absolve itself from any wrongdoing in the tragedy.
However, counsel for the Kurban and Henry families, Prakash Ramadhar suggested that the CoE's report contains recommendations for criminal prosecution of Paria personnel for their failure to attempt a rescue of the divers.