Over three years af­ter four divers lost their lives in what was dubbed the Paria Div­ing Tragedy, the Gov­ern­ment has an­nounced that the fam­i­lies of each div­er will re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion of $1 mil­lion, as will the lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young made the an­nounce­ment at yes­ter­day’s post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing at White­hall, Port-of-Spain, but sought to un­der­score that it had noth­ing to do with this month’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The news came as a sur­prise to the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and Boodram, who were not no­ti­fied of Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion pri­or to it be­ing made pub­lic.

Young said these will be ex-gra­tia pay­ments, which means there is no ad­mis­sion of li­a­bil­i­ty, as he ac­knowl­edged the mat­ter of as­sign­ing blame is still be­ing set­tled be­tween Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd and Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS).

The PM said he was sim­ply fed up with the back and forth be­tween the com­pa­nies while the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies suf­fered.

“I’ve had enough and as Prime Min­is­ter, last week, I’ve been keep­ing the Cab­i­net en­gaged on the con­ver­sa­tion, keep­ing them abreast of the frus­trat­ing con­ver­sa­tions I was hav­ing, be­cause the Gov­ern­ment had al­ways want­ed for these mat­ters to be set­tled,” he said.

Asked about those who would find the tim­ing sus­pi­cious giv­en that the tragedy took place in 2022 and the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion is com­ing weeks be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Young said, “I can’t change that per­cep­tion of peo­ple, and I could un­der­stand the cyn­i­cism by per­sons who hold that point of view. I know that the facts re­late that I was ex­treme­ly frus­trat­ed, per­son­al­ly, ask­ing for this to be done even be­fore we came in­to 2025. So, I had enough, I went to Cab­i­net and said I am no longer pre­pared to have these com­pa­nies and in­sur­ers frus­trate the process, let us take a de­ci­sion, I know the law, it is ex-gra­tia,” Young said.

He added, “So I can’t avoid that, I can’t avoid the tim­ing, I can’t avoid the con­ver­sa­tions that the pop­u­la­tion and peo­ple are en­ti­tled to have. It is not for the elec­tion but even me say­ing that will bring no so­lace and change no­body’s mind.”

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, LM­CS div­er Kaz­im Ali Ju­nior, Yusuf Hen­ry, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban and Christo­pher Boodram were sucked in­to a 36-inch pipeline from a hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber while work­ing off Paria Fu­el’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty. In­ves­ti­ga­tors de­ter­mined the in­ci­dent re­sult­ed from “gross and con­se­quent­ly crim­i­nal” neg­li­gence.

Young said he ex­pects the mat­ter to be politi­cised but he is sat­is­fied Gov­ern­ment took ac­tion, “al­beit in my view a bit late.”

Asked if the fam­i­lies and Boodram were aware of the de­vel­op­ment and what their re­sponse to the of­fer was, Young said, “We lit­er­al­ly just came out of Cab­i­net a few sec­onds ago so this is the first time every­body would be hear­ing that.”

On if he be­lieved this was the right process, Young fired back, “I don’t know what is the prop­er process, ac­cord­ing to your mind and how you see it, I un­der­stand how you would like to see it, I un­der­stand how you may want to spin it, these are the facts, this is what has hap­pened.”

Ex­plain­ing how Cab­i­net ar­rived at the $1 mil­lion fig­ure, Young said, “As you know, there is a gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, for ex­am­ple, with law en­force­ment of­fi­cers who are killed in the line of ac­tive du­ty, $1 mil­lion, be­cause there was con­ver­sa­tion, should it be less? And ul­ti­mate­ly, I per­suad­ed my col­leagues with­out much re­sis­tance, let’s go with the $1 mil­lion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so said this does not stop the fam­i­lies from seek­ing fur­ther dam­ages through the courts.

“This is for now, they will go through their le­gal process, if they don’t think it is enough, I am not stop­ping them, or the Gov­ern­ment is not stop­ping them from pur­su­ing ac­tion against LM­CS and Paria.”

Young could not say when the pay­ments would be made, as he said it would be up to the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

Com­ment­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the an­nounce­ment, at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing the Kur­ban and Hen­ry fam­i­lies in the mat­ter, said it was too lit­tle too late.

“A mere few weeks away from a gen­er­al elec­tion, it is not a sur­prise that it has sud­den­ly dawned up­on this Gov­ern­ment that they should do the right, ho­n­ourable and de­cent thing and make an ex-gra­tia pay­ment to the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased from the Paria in­ci­dent,” Ra­mad­har said.

Re­spond­ing to the amount be­ing award­ed, he said, “It is al­so very trou­bling that the fig­ure of $1 mil­lion comes in light of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at­tempt­ing to sue the leader of the Op­po­si­tion for $4 mil­lion, sup­pos­ed­ly on the ba­sis of defam­a­to­ry state­ments. How do we come to a par­i­ty where the life of a cit­i­zen is not worth the pos­si­ble defama­tion of a pub­lic of­fi­cial? Four mil­lion is what they are claim­ing for that, $1 mil­lion for the life that has been loss and the fam­i­lies who will suf­fer for all of their ex­is­tence.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called the de­vel­op­ment a “dis­gust­ing and in­sult­ing at­tempt to buy votes.”

“This is the low­est elec­tion stunt he has pulled yet, and it reeks of des­per­a­tion,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

“Young’s re­marks to­day churn the stom­achs of all right-think­ing cit­i­zens. His at­tempt to cap­i­talise on the pain and suf­fer­ing of these fam­i­lies, af­ter three years of Gov­ern­ment ne­glect, is a dis­grace. This is the true char­ac­ter of a man who comes from a lin­eage of priv­i­lege—one who be­lieves he can throw mon­ey at prob­lems to make them dis­ap­pear. He knows the peo­ple will nev­er for­get these divers and the cru­el­ty of this Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment to them.”

This was echoed by out­go­ing Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh, who said Young can­not take any cred­it for the de­ci­sion.

“Their in­ac­tion led to the death of the divers. The fam­i­lies of the divers must not be pros­ti­tut­ed in the con­text of a gen­er­al elec­tion. I want to tell Prime Min­is­ter Young that, in­deed, the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased divers and Christo­pher Boodram are not for sale.”