Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The re­port from the Paria Com­mis­sion of En­quiry has been sent to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard for him to look at and to ad­vise on fu­ture ac­tion, if any, that should be tak­en.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­vealed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, af­ter he laid the re­port.

He was re­ply­ing to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Rod­ney Charles, who had a ques­tion on the or­der pa­per, for re­ply by the Prime Min­is­ter, seek­ing an up­date on the sta­tus of the re­port

The re­port cov­ered the probe by the CoE head­ed by Jerome Lynch, KC, in­to the deaths of four Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS) divers—Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Yusuf Hen­ry—in a pipeline of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022. A fifth div­er, Christo­pher Boodram, sur­vived.

The re­port was hand­ed to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo in No­vem­ber and was ex­am­ined by the Cab­i­net sub­se­quent­ly. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had as­sured it would be made pub­lic.

The re­port has rec­om­mend­ed that Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed should be charged for cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter. The 380-page re­port, pro­duced by CoE chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC, con­tains 52 rec­om­men­da­tions. (Se oth­er sto­ry)

Re­ply­ing to Charles, Young said the CoE’s re­port had been laid in the Par­lia­ment, is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Par­lia­ment “and is now sub­ject to the pop­u­la­tion”.

Charles asked if any redac­tions were made to the orig­i­nal re­port sub­mit­ted by the CoE.

Young said, “The an­swer is ab­solute­ly none.”

Charles asked if any pre­lim­i­nary ac­tion has been tak­en by the En­er­gy Min­istry in light of the re­port’s con­tents, to pre­vent re­cur­rence of the tragedy.

Young said, “The re­port went be­fore the Cab­i­net, who took a col­lec­tive de­ci­sion to send the re­port to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for him to look at and to ad­vise on fu­ture ... ac­tion, if any, that should be tak­en.”

Charles asked if the re­port was al­so sent to the TTPS for ac­tion.

Young said, “As just stat­ed, the Cab­i­net has tak­en a de­ci­sion to send the re­port from the Paria Com­mis­sion of En­quiry for a thor­ough look at, by the of­fice of the DPP, who, as we all know con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly and dur­ing the course of the con­duct of his nor­mal busi­ness, if he sees it fit the TTPS, or any oth­er in­ves­tiga­tive arm, he will do so.”

Giv­en work­place ac­ci­dents at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, Ni­Quan En­er­gy Trinidad Lim­it­ed and at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty last year, where a to­tal of six work­ers died, UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh asked about steps by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) to en­force work­place safe­ty pro­to­cols in keep­ing with the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act, Chap 88:08

To this, Labour Min­is­ter Stephen McLashie said, “The OSH Agency plays a vi­tal role in pre­vent­ing such breach­es of the OSH Act. To fur­ther en­force work­place safe­ty pro­to­cols in keep­ing with this act, and to in­sti­tute a more proac­tive ap­proach to com­pli­ance, the agency en­gages in nu­mer­ous sen­si­ti­sa­tion and pub­lic aware­ness ac­tiv­i­ties tar­get­ed at stake­hold­ers across T&T in­dus­tries.”

He de­tailed some sen­si­ti­sa­tion ini­tia­tives con­duct­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary to De­cem­ber 2023.

McLashie added, “Dur­ing this pe­ri­od, the agency al­so re­ceived a to­tal of 556 com­plaints, con­duct­ed 1,385 in­ves­ti­ga­tions and 1,981 in­spec­tions. There are cur­rent­ly 69 mat­ters be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

TTPS prob­ing WASA work­er’s death— Mar­vin

The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty’s (WASA) in­ter­nal probe in­to the death of WASA work­er Kern Eti­enne last Oc­to­ber is com­plet­ed and is al­so be­ing probed by the TT Po­lice Ser­vice, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les con­firmed yes­ter­day.

UNC MP Rudy In­dars­ingh had sought an up­date in the sta­tus of WASA’s probe in­to Eti­enne’s death.

Eti­enne, 39, died af­ter he be­came trapped in a trench while work­ing along La­dy Hailes Av­enue, San Fer­nan­do, near the Cross Cross­ing over­pass. It was re­port­ed that a mound of dirt col­lapsed on him. His col­leagues tried to dig him out but Et­ti­enne suc­cumbed to his in­juries at hos­pi­tal.

Gon­za­les said the mat­ter is al­so be­ing probed by WASA and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA).

Gon­za­les said, “WASA has ad­vised that their in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed, and the re­port is be­ing fi­nalised for sub­mis­sion for the con­sid­er­a­tion of the board of com­mis­sion­ers at its next reg­u­lar meet­ing sched­uled for Jan­u­ary 30, 2024. WASA has al­so ad­vised that the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“I re­it­er­ate the as­sur­ance giv­en by me on this mat­ter, on No­vem­ber 1, 2023, that the find­ings of any re­port re­ceived would be made pub­lic and if any neg­li­gence is found on the part of WASA, we would al­low the chips to fall where they may.”