RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny says all le­gal mat­ters re­lat­ed to the deaths of four divers at one of its work­site in Feb­ru­ary 2022 have been re­ferred to its at­tor­neys.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows re­cent lit­i­ga­tion filed by the lawyers of Christo­pher Boodram, the sole sur­vivor, and the fam­i­ly of Rishi Na­gas­sar against Paria and Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (LM­CS).

On Oc­to­ber 14, at­tor­neys from Free­dom Law Cham­bers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, filed law­suits cit­ing 29 grounds of al­leged neg­li­gence against Paria and 25 against LM­CS.

The law­suits seek com­pen­sa­tion for Na­gas­sar’s death and for Boodram’s on­go­ing phys­i­cal and men­tal in­juries, stem­ming from the in­ci­dent.

Sum­maris­ing the neg­li­gence claims against the com­pa­nies, the lawyers claimed Paria failed to iden­ti­fy the po­ten­tial haz­ards as­so­ci­at­ed with the job and im­ple­ment mea­sures to en­sure an ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse. They al­leged that Paria ne­glect­ed to en­sure that LM­CS pro­vid­ed prop­er health and safe­ty equip­ment for its staff, which com­pro­mised their abil­i­ty to com­plete the job safe­ly and com­pe­tent­ly.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the lawyers claimed both Paria and LM­CS did not ad­e­quate­ly clear the pipeline be­fore al­low­ing the divers to be­gin their work.

The lawyers high­light­ed a gen­er­al fail­ure to ad­here to in­dus­try safe­ty stan­dards, not­ing this neg­li­gence en­dan­gered the safe­ty of Boodram and oth­er work­ers.

Fur­ther­more, they crit­i­cised Paria for hin­der­ing res­cue ef­forts and ref­er­enced find­ings from the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) es­tab­lished by the Gov­ern­ment to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent in light of pub­lic out­rage.

Re­gard­ing the emo­tion­al im­pact on Boodram, his lawyers not­ed that he con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence men­tal an­guish and is haunt­ed by the mem­o­ries of his friends’ suf­fer­ing, feel­ing un­able to as­sist them de­spite his promis­es. They stat­ed that he has been un­able to re­turn to work due to post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) stem­ming from the in­ci­dent.

In light of these de­vel­op­ments, Guardian Me­dia sub­mit­ted 14 ques­tions to Paria yes­ter­day re­gard­ing its re­sponse to the law­suits, its ap­proach to the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Ad­min­is­tra­tion (OS­HA) charges, and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of safe­ty pro­to­cols fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

In re­sponse, Paria stat­ed, “Please be ad­vised that all le­gal mat­ters have been re­ferred to our at­tor­neys for han­dling.”

The four divers - Kaz­im Ali Jr., Yusuf Hen­ry, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Fyzal Kur­ban died on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, while con­duct­ing re­pair work on an un­der­wa­ter pipeline at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty.

The flood­ing of their hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber re­sult­ed in the divers be­ing sucked in­to the pipeline. Boodram was the on­ly sur­vivor.

Fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent Paria faced scruti­ny from reg­u­la­tors and the pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing work­er safe­ty and emer­gency pre­pared­ness. Fol­low­ing a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry chaired by King’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch 47 ma­jor rec­om­men­da­tions were made, in­clud­ing oc­cu­pa­tion­al safe­ty and health charges.

The com­mis­sion al­so rec­om­mend­ed that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, con­sid­er pros­e­cut­ing Paria for gross neg­li­gence manslaugh­ter.

In Ju­ly, DPP Gas­pard wrote to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to ini­ti­ate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine if there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute any per­son or en­ti­ty. Around the same time, Paria is­sued a re­lease claim­ing LM­CS and the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies were frus­trat­ing its at­tempts to set­tle claims.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing some of the fam­i­lies, de­nied the claims and called on Paria to pay each of the men’s fam­i­lies $5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. How­ev­er, there has been no de­tailed re­sponse on these mat­ters from Paria.