RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste is call­ing for the six breach­es iden­ti­fied by the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty, which led to the death of WASA work­er Kern Eti­enne, to be made pub­lic.

OS­HA filed a for­mal com­plaint in the In­dus­tri­al Court against WASA for six breach­es of the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty (OSH) Act. The mat­ter was called for case man­age­ment on June 7.

Re­spond­ing to the de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day, Bap­tiste said: “It is the firm view of the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion that this OS­HA re­port should not be hid­den and the or­gan­i­sa­tion could on­ly learn from its mis­take when it be­comes a pub­lic doc­u­ment.”

Asked whether he was sur­prised that the OSH Au­thor­i­ty had filed charges in the In­dus­tri­al Court against WASA, Bap­tist said: “I am sur­prised that it’s on­ly six breach­es that were found. The lev­el of un­safe­ty in WASA is high.”

Bap­tiste sought to ex­plain this un­safe cul­ture say­ing: “When you have an es­sen­tial ser­vice that is un­der­fund­ed, it caus­es the au­thor­i­ty to cut cor­ners to get the work done, so the un­der­fund­ing of WASA is what caused the prob­lem that re­sult­ed in the loss of life.”

He said the PSA has com­plained “bit­ter­ly” about in­ad­e­quate health and safe­ty over the years.

He al­so called for the WASA Board to be fired.

“Peo­ple are run­ning the au­thor­i­ty and they are not fol­low­ing the law. We have asked for the union and man­age­ment to sit and en­gage in re­view­ing the safe­ty man­age­ment about the safe­ty and health of em­ploy­ees. It starts there.”

Mean­while, Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh, who is the UNC’s Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Labour, al­so called for the dis­missal of the WASA Board. He said the OS­HA re­port should be laid in Par­lia­ment.

“The Hu­man Re­sources and the Health and Safe­ty De­part­ments at WASA, in ad­di­tion to WASA’s man­age­ment must ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the breach­es which oc­curred un­der their watch. While they are alive and con­duct­ing their analy­ses, Mr Eti­enne is no longer alive and his fam­i­ly has lost a hus­band, a fa­ther, a son, a broth­er and a bread­win­ner,” he said.

Mean­while, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said now that the OSH Au­thor­i­ty filed an ac­tion against WASA in the In­dus­tri­al Court, it was proof that there were no cov­er-ups by State agen­cies.

He said: “I am sat­is­fied that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was done in­de­pen­dent­ly and with­out ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence. De­spite the howls and cries by many de­trac­tors about al­leged ‘cov­er-ups’ this shows and proves that we still do have func­tion­ing in­sti­tu­tions in our coun­try and for that, we should be proud.”

“As Min­is­ter, I have to be very care­ful and re­spon­si­ble in what I say since I do not wish to prej­u­dice any of the in­ter­est­ed par­ties in this mat­ter. I promised from the on­set that a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be al­lowed and the chips may fall where they may,” he added.

Eti­enne died on Oc­to­ber 22, last year af­ter a mound of dirt col­lapsed on top of him while he was work­ing in­side a trench along Cipero Road, near the San Fer­nan­do Li­cens­ing Of­fice. Eight of his col­leagues fran­ti­cal­ly tried to claw their way through the mud to free him. How­ev­er, an au­top­sy con­firmed he died af­ter his spine was sev­ered in two places. 

WASA on Sun­day said it en­gaged the ser­vices of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny to re­view, au­dit and ad­vise on its process­es to en­sure they are in line with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices.