Claim­ing there is a “crim­i­nal coverup” of the mishap in­volv­ing four divers at Berth 6 off­shore plat­form at Pointe-a-Pierre, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union An­cel Ro­get says off­shore work­ers are now be­ing threat­ened by com­pa­ny of­fi­cials as an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­gins in­to the tragedy.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence held at the car park of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, Ro­get re­vealed that com­pa­ny of­fi­cials have warned work­ers not to speak about the in­ci­dent at Num­ber 36 Sealine ris­er on Berth No. 6 which led to the divers be­ing sucked in­to the pipeline.

“They are be­ing told if you want to get pay, if you want your work, then hush your mouth,” Ro­get re­vealed. He added, “We are con­vinced there is a coverup. Why then would you want to keep out the union out of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions? We are fa­mil­iar with the pro­to­cols and what should have been in place to pre­vent some­thing like this from hap­pen­ing,” Ro­get said.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young con­firmed at a press con­fer­ence on Mon­day that the OW­TU was not part of the in­de­pen­dent five-per­son com­mit­tee of en­er­gy-sec­tor ex­perts who were tasked with prob­ing the week­end’s trag­ic in­ci­dent.

Ro­get al­so ques­tioned why Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Lim­it­ed chair­man New­man George, gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed and Ter­mi­nal Man­ag­er Collin Piper were still on the job while in­ves­ti­ga­tions are tak­ing place.

Sayin they had the pow­er to in­flu­ence any on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Ro­get said in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards and pro­to­cols would dic­tate that they be re­moved be­fore any in­ves­ti­ga­tion could take place. “To leave them there would give the im­pres­sion that any in­ves­ti­ga­tion done will be flawed and bi­ased,” Ro­get added.

He al­so urged the fam­i­lies not to al­low the com­pa­ny to buy them out.
“Stick to­geth­er, they will try to di­vide you and of­fer you, sweet­en­ers. Be very wary of that. These peo­ple are demons in hu­man form,” he charged.
Ro­get al­so said that the OW­TU had al­ready con­tact­ed its lawyers to of­fer sup­port to the fam­i­lies.

“We be­lieve these peo­ple should be tak­en to task. We want the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to do an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. We want to know at what point did this turn from a res­cue mis­sion to a re­cov­ery mis­sion,” Ro­get added.

“I am call­ing on the TTPS to de­ploy your re­sources not to beat or ar­rest griev­ing fam­i­lies but to find out whether a crime has been com­mit­ted at that plat­form,” he added.
He not­ed, “In our re­spect­ful view we be­lieve this is a crime of ne­glect. A crime of not putting res­cue op­er­a­tions in place.”

Asked whether he had in­for­ma­tion that the pipeline was ex­pect­ed to be flushed to ex­tract the bod­ies, Ro­get said he had no such in­for­ma­tion. He said ten min­utes be­fore his press con­fer­ence, there was no ac­tive work be­ing done on the pipeline. He said a tar­pau­lin had been placed but he was un­sure as to the pur­pose of the tar­pau­lin.

“Maybe it is to shade or pre­vent any sight­ings or ob­ser­vance from an aer­i­al view. We do not know why they will do that. What­ev­er they do now is as­so­ci­at­ed with a cov­er-up,” Ro­get said.

He not­ed that the de­vel­op­ments were un­like any­thing that has hap­pened in T&T’s his­to­ry.
Ro­get not­ed that when deep sea div­er Ronald Ra­moutar left Port of Spain and went to the scene and suc­cess­ful­ly res­cued un­der­wa­ter welder Christo­pher Boodram against Paria’s ad­vice, of­fi­cials were in­formed that the oth­er divers were alive. How­ev­er, rather than en­gage in a res­cue mis­sion, a de­ci­sion was tak­en to seal the pipeline and the res­cue mis­sion was abort­ed.

Re­porter: Rhad­i­ca De Sil­va