Asha Javeed

Lead Ed­i­tor In­ves­ti­ga­tions

asha.javeed@guardian.co.tt

Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices (LM­CS)’s work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion in­sur­ance for con­tract­ed divers for work at Paria’s fa­cil­i­ties was val­ued at $250,000.

Ac­cord­ing to the con­tract doc­u­ments sub­mit­ted to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) by Paria, LM­CS’s in­sur­ance bro­ker was Nor­man Gabriel Lim­it­ed In­sur­ance Bro­kers and the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny was Trinre.

The CoE doc­u­ments show that LM­CS’ work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion was valid from De­cem­ber 31, 2020, to De­cem­ber 30, 2021.

Just over two months lat­er, on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, the com­pa­ny lost four of its em­ploy­ees on the Paria com­pound.

The in­sur­ance re­new­al was on­ly is­sued on March 8, 2022, eleven days af­ter the in­ci­dent.

LM­CS’s lawyer Kami­ni Per­saud pro­vid­ed the Sun­day Guardian with a copy of the re­new­al doc­u­ment, dat­ed March 8, 2022, for the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 31, 2021, to De­cem­ber 30, 2022. She said that March 8 was the is­sue date for the con­tin­u­a­tion of cov­er­age un­der the pol­i­cy and that work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion was still valid.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that Paria does not have the up­dat­ed in­sur­ance doc­u­ment in its files for LM­CS, but Per­saud said it was sub­mit­ted to the COE.

LM­CS be­gan work on Paria’s com­pound in Ju­ly 2021 af­ter it won the con­tract val­ued at $5.2 mil­lion which was ten­dered for in Feb­ru­ary.

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that an in­ci­dent hap­pened on Paria’s com­pound in­volv­ing an LM­CS work­er on Ju­ly 2, which caused Paria to be slapped with an Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) pro­hi­bi­tion for five months.

Af­ter work re­sumed in Jan­u­ary, the in­ci­dent took place a month lat­er.

LM­CS divers Rishi Na­gas­sar, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry, and Christo­pher Boodram, were sucked in­to a 30-inch un­der­wa­ter pipeline af­ter a dif­fer­en­tial pres­sure (Delta P) event oc­curred while they were do­ing main­te­nance work at Berth No 6 in the Pointe-a-Pierre har­bour near­ly two years ago.

Af­ter the in­ci­dent, the job was 37 per cent com­plete and LM­CS earned about $3 mil­lion for the job.

The com­pa­ny has worked with Paria since 2018 and earned up to $53.5 mil­lion with short and long-term con­tracts with its fi­nal job con­clud­ing in April 2022, ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ments.

Com­pen­sa­tion in the works

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har has called on Paria to pro­vide $5 mil­lion in ex gra­tia pay­ment to the fam­i­lies in­volved in the in­ci­dent.

On Fri­day, Per­saud said that LM­CS was in the process of mak­ing arrange­ments to pay work­men’s com­pen­sa­tion to the fam­i­lies of the four divers

Per­saud said that LM­CS had so far fi­nalised pay­ments for two of the fam­i­lies and once the re­quired doc­u­ments are re­ceived from the oth­er two fam­i­lies, they would 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.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, LM­CS’ man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr said the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) had pro­hib­it­ed its div­ing ser­vices.

Dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s ques­tions in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said peo­ple await­ing com­pen­sa­tion would not die be­cause some of the peo­ple in­volved in this mat­ter had al­ready got $50 mil­lion from Paria.

When Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh asked who got the $50 mil­lion, Dr Row­ley re­spond­ed, “Mr Deputy Speak­er, in the con­text of be­ing told that peo­ple could die and starve to death, I sim­ply said that that is not the sit­u­a­tion that ex­ists be­cause the peo­ple in­volved, whether it is Paria or LM­CS, have earned 50-odd mil­lion dol­lars from Paria and, there­fore, I don’t ex­pect any­body to starve to death when the two com­pa­nies are in­volved.”

He added, “This is not a mat­ter for the Gov­ern­ment of T&T to be go­ing to jump in. This is a mat­ter where a State com­pa­ny had an ac­ci­dent in a sit­u­a­tion where a con­tract was be­ing ex­e­cut­ed by a pri­vate com­pa­ny. These are the facts. So the Gov­ern­ment can­not just jump in and de­cide to pay com­pen­sa­tion willy-nil­ly all over the place. We have to fol­low process­es ... If you’re talk­ing to the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment and to the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is not at this time in­volved in this mat­ter.”

Paria re­mains mum

Mean­while, Paria told the Sun­day Guardian that they have been gagged by their at­tor­neys from speak­ing on the mat­ter be­cause it would be sub-ju­dice.

For his part, Dr Row­ley said the find­ings of the CoE were be­ing re­viewed by the Paria board, and the Gov­ern­ment was not pre­pared to “over­ride” the board’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and role.

On whether the Paria board should be re­moved, Dr Row­ley said, “The sta­tus of the board of Paria is a mat­ter for the Cab­i­net of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I will not take any ad­vice from the Mem­ber of Oropouche East.”

The CoE de­ter­mined that the Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed should be charged with cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter.

It is one of 52 rec­om­men­da­tions in the re­port pro­duced by Jerome Lynch, KC, chair­man of the COE in­to the Paria pipeline tragedy which led to the deaths of the divers.

Lynch said Paria breached its du­ty of care to Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS). In turn, LM­CS breached its du­ty of care to its work­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, there is enough ev­i­dence for pros­e­cu­tion of both Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s Op­er­a­tions Man­ag­er Col­in Piper and LM­CS’s Ali Se­nior in­di­vid­u­al­ly and Paria and LM­CS as em­ploy­ers for sev­er­al of­fences un­der the OSH Act.

“How­ev­er, at the time of writ­ing this re­port the OSH ACT re­quires that any such pro­ceed­ings be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court must be filed with­in two years of the in­ci­dent be­com­ing known- in oth­er words 24th Feb­ru­ary 2024,” it said.

The deaths and the pub­lic furore which fol­lowed led to the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry which cost the coun­try $15.5 mil­lion. At­tor­neys fees were a fur­ther $8 mil­lion.