Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardain.co.tt

Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices (LM­CS) is mak­ing arrange­ments to pay work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion to the fam­i­lies of the four divers who lost their lives in the Paria Fu­el pipeline tragedy al­most two years ago.

Con­firm­ing this yes­ter­day, LM­CS at­tor­ney Kami­ni Per­saud said they had so far fi­nalised pay­ments for two of the fam­i­lies. She as­sured that once the re­quired doc­u­ments are re­ceived from the oth­er two fam­i­lies, they will al­so re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion.

“LM­CS is putting things in place so that all of the par­ties will get what is due them un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act,” she said.

As for lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram, Per­saud said she has not dealt with his mat­ter as yet, as she was un­aware of the ex­tent of his in­juries and they were fol­low­ing the guide­lines of the act.

“I haven’t ac­tu­al­ly dealt with any­thing on his be­half as yet,” she said.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, LM­CS’ man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr said af­ter the trag­ic in­ci­dent that al­so claimed his son’s life, the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty had pro­hib­it­ed its div­ing ser­vices. He al­so al­leged that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young gave in­struc­tions to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny to cut ties with his com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter has de­nied giv­ing those in­struc­tions.

Ear­li­er this week, at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who rep­re­sent­ed some of the fam­i­lies, re­newed his call for a $5 mil­lion ex-gra­tia pay­ment to be made to the fam­i­lies of the divers.

When con­tact­ed, Boodram con­firmed that he has not re­ceived any com­pen­sa­tion but did not want to com­ment fur­ther on the mat­ter.

Mean­while, Vanes­sa Kussie, wid­ow of Rishi Na­gas­sar, said no one had con­tact­ed her con­cern­ing com­pen­sa­tion.

“No, I have not re­ceived any com­pen­sa­tion from LM­CS, nei­ther have they called me for the past cou­ple of months, no, they don’t, and they will be the next per­son I will be go­ing af­ter.”

She said when her hus­band was alive they had a close re­la­tion­ship with Ali Snr, and af­ter the tragedy he told her “not wor­ry, do not fear, he will make sure he have my back.”

Kussie said she felt Ali Snr, de­spite al­so los­ing his son in the tragedy, could have tried to give her some sup­port, since Na­gas­sar was the bread­win­ner of the fam­i­ly.

Not­ing that no one from LM­CS ever con­tact­ed her con­cern­ing Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion, she said she could not speak for the oth­er fam­i­lies, but “if you help­ing one you have to help all.”

Fol­low­ing the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the deaths of the four divers that found LM­CS and Paria li­able for con­tra­ven­tions un­der the OSH Act, the OS­HA filed a mat­ter against Paria and LM­CS in the In­dus­tri­al Court.

For­mer OSH in­spec­tor Safraz Ali ex­plained that un­der Sect 86 Part One, an em­ploy­er, oc­cu­pi­er or own­er, once found li­able in a sit­u­a­tion where an em­ploy­ee dies, is crit­i­cal­ly in­jured or de­vel­ops an oc­cu­pa­tion­al dis­ease, faces a $100,000 fine or equiv­a­lent to three years pay of the vic­tim, what­ev­er is greater, and it can ei­ther be paid in whole or part to the vic­tim’s fam­i­ly or es­tate.”

How­ev­er, he called for the act to be amend­ed to in­crease the fine.

“I think $100,000 is way, way to small in this time, in this era and I think that this Sec­tion 86 Part One needs to be amend­ed to bear in mind the cur­rent eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tions, salaries etc. I re­al­ly think $100,000 is way to small for the death of a per­son who is the sole bread­win­ner of a fam­i­ly,” said Ali.