Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OSH Au­thor­i­ty) is no clos­er to know­ing the fate of its par­al­lel pros­e­cu­tions against Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny and Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS) over an in­ci­dent at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty, which claimed the lives of four divers in 2022. 

Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Bri­an Dabideen was ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er a rul­ing on the im­pact of a land­mark Privy Coun­cil judg­ment over the time lim­it for ini­ti­at­ing such pros­e­cu­tions when the case came up for hear­ing yes­ter­day. 

How­ev­er, he was forced to ad­journ the case to give the par­ties more time to file writ­ten le­gal sub­mis­sions on the is­sue. 

In the land­mark rul­ing in Sep­tem­ber, the coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court ruled that such pros­e­cu­tions un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act (OS­HA) should be ini­ti­at­ed with­in six months of breach­es com­ing to the at­ten­tion of one of the au­thor­i­ty’s in­spec­tors. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions when the is­sue arose at a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, the au­thor­i­ty’s lawyer Pamela El­der, claimed that the rul­ing did not in­val­i­date the charges against the com­pa­nies and its of­fi­cials, as the time lim­it on­ly be­gan to ap­ply af­ter the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) com­plet­ed its work in late 2023. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Paria’s lawyer Kendell Alexan­der, who ap­peared along­side Se­nior Coun­sel Sophia Chote, said they agreed that the pros­e­cu­tions could con­tin­ue. 

How­ev­er, LM­CS’s lawyer Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan said her client would be chal­leng­ing the po­si­tion as it felt the time lim­it be­gan when the al­leged breach­es of the leg­is­la­tion were dis­cov­ered by the au­thor­i­ty’s chief in­spec­tor be­fore the CoE be­gan. 

Mag­is­trate Dabideen gave the par­ties time to dis­cuss the is­sue and file sub­mis­sions, but warned them to avoid fur­ther de­lays of the case based on the pre­lim­i­nary le­gal is­sue. 

He al­so not­ed the case and le­gal is­sue would have to be con­sid­ered and de­ter­mined by an­oth­er mag­is­trate, as he had been re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to act as Chief Mag­is­trate. 

The new mag­is­trate is ex­pect­ed to rule on the lim­i­ta­tion is­sue on April 17, next year. 

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, LM­CS divers Christo­pher Boodram, Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Yusuf Hen­ry, and Ali’s son Kaz­im Jr, were sucked in­to a 30-inch-di­am­e­ter pipeline where they were per­form­ing main­te­nance work at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty. 

All were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured, but Boodram man­aged to make his way to the en­trance of the pipeline and was res­cued.

LM­CS of­fi­cials were blocked from at­tempt­ing to res­cue their col­leagues. 

Cab­i­net ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed a five-mem­ber team to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent, but even­tu­al­ly ap­point­ed a CoE due to pub­lic crit­i­cism. 

In its re­port re­leased in Jan­u­ary 2024, the com­mis­sion, chaired by King’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch, pre­sent­ed sev­er­al dozen rec­om­men­da­tions, in­clud­ing charges un­der the OSH Act. 

The charges were even­tu­al­ly laid against Paria, LM­CS, Paria’s gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed, its ter­mi­nal op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Collin Piper, LM­CS di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr, both be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court and a mag­is­trate. 

The com­pa­nies and in­di­vid­u­als plead­ed not guilty to the charges be­fore a mag­is­trate in Sep­tem­ber 2024. 

Last year, LM­CS’s le­gal team wrote to lawyers for Boodram and his de­ceased col­leagues’ fam­i­lies sug­gest­ing that they should di­rect their le­gal ac­tion to Paria. 

LM­CS’s lawyers dis­missed any im­pu­ta­tion of cul­pa­bil­i­ty at­tached to it by the com­mis­sion and claimed that Paria should be held sole­ly li­able for what tran­spired. 

They sug­gest­ed that even if their clients were par­tial­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ini­tial ac­ci­dent, as al­leged, Paria’s han­dling of the re­sponse ab­solved them. 

LM­CS did ad­mit that they owe their work­ers’ fam­i­lies and Boodram com­pen­sa­tion un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act, but claimed that pay­ments could not be made un­til its claim to its in­sur­er is de­ter­mined. 

The com­pa­ny claimed that it pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion over the is­sue af­ter it made a claim short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent, but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.  

In Oc­to­ber 2024, Boodram and Na­gas­sar’s fam­i­ly filed neg­li­gence law­suits against Paria and LM­CS. 

Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s fam­i­lies were ex­pect­ed to do the same. 

In ear­ly April, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young an­nounced that the Cab­i­net had de­cid­ed to make a one-time ex-gra­tia pay­ment of $1 mil­lion each to Boodram and his col­leagues’ fam­i­lies with­out ad­mit­ting li­a­bil­i­ty. 

While speak­ing to re­porters at the swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for her Cab­i­net in May, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gest­ed that ju­di­cial as­sis­tance may be re­quired to help set­tle the cas­es, which may be more com­pli­cat­ed than ini­tial­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed. 

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, Paria’s new chair­woman Nyree Al­fon­so con­firmed that the ex-gra­tia pay­ment was nev­er made. 

Last month, High Court Mas­ter Wren­er­son Lochan dis­missed an ap­pli­ca­tion from Paria to re­move it­self for Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion claims brought by Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s fam­i­lies.