RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has con­firmed re­ceiv­ing a re­port from the Com­mis­sion­ers of the Paria Div­ing tragedy and hand­ing it over to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.A source at the Pres­i­dent’s Of­fice, who did not wish to be named, said yes­ter­day: “Her Ex­cel­len­cy re­ceived the re­port yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) morn­ing and it was hand­ed over to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter the same day.”How­ev­er, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies are aim­ing to ob­tain a copy of the re­port.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day he plans to cor­re­spond with the Prime Min­is­ter in the com­ing week, for­mal­ly re­quest­ing ac­cess to the re­port. 
Stress­ing the ur­gency of pub­lic dis­clo­sure, Ra­mad­har said: “We ap­pre­ci­ate that the Gov­ern­ment will need to re­flect deeply and re­lease it pub­licly. We are ask­ing for an ex­pe­di­tious re­lease.”
While he ac­knowl­edged there would be a process to be fol­lowed by the Gov­ern­ment, Ra­mad­har op­ti­misti­cal­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed a po­ten­tial re­lease by mid-Jan­u­ary. 

“I would imag­ine by mid-Jan­u­ary we should have that prop­er­ly put be­fore Par­lia­ment and in the pub­lic space. That is high­ly op­ti­mistic but it is my ex­pec­ta­tion,” he added.
Ra­mad­har al­so high­light­ed the pre­pared­ness of le­gal ad­vi­sors for the fam­i­lies and their will­ing­ness to ex­plore le­gal re­course. But he said he hoped this would end with prop­er com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­lies.

“We are pre­pared to go to court but it’s a road I would rather not pro­ceed on, be­cause of the ex­pense of lit­i­ga­tion for tax­pay­ers. Of course, we are rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies free of charge,” he added.

Ra­mad­har agreed with Com­mis­sion Chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC, on the need for an ex-gra­tia pay­ment to the fam­i­lies with­out ad­mis­sion of li­a­bil­i­ty.  He al­so de­scribed the tragedy as pre­ventable, as he said it was “atro­cious, heart­break­ing, and un­for­giv­able.”

High­light­ing the fi­nan­cial strug­gles of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, in­clud­ing the chal­lenges faced by Fyzal Kur­ban’s daugh­ter in cov­er­ing her ed­u­ca­tion ex­pens­es in Cana­da, Ra­mad­har stressed the com­mu­ni­ty’s sup­port, cit­ing a fundrais­ing ef­fort to aid the chil­dren of one of the divers.

“We see the cost of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry. We see le­gal fees paid $21 mil­lion and not a cent for the fam­i­lies. How can we say we are not go­ing to look af­ter these chil­dren,” Ra­mad­har ques­tioned.

On Wednes­day, Com­mis­sion Chair­man Jerome Lynch, KC, said the fi­nal ap­prox­i­mate cost of the CoE was $15.5 mil­lion.

Since the com­ple­tion of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, there has been a pub­lic out­cry for the re­port to be made pub­lic.
Con­cerns have been raised as to why the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims had not re­ceived a cent of com­pen­sa­tion from Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny or Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS) Ltd.

On Feb­ru­ary 25 four divers, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Yusuf Hen­ry died af­ter dis­ap­pear­ing in­to a 30-inch pipeline be­long­ing to Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd dur­ing an un­der­wa­ter main­te­nance ex­er­cise. A fifth div­er Christo­pher Boodram sur­vived. LM­CS com­pa­ny had hired the divers to ex­e­cute main­te­nance works on Sealine 36 sit­u­at­ed be­tween Berth 5 and 6 when the tragedy oc­curred.