De­spite the deaths of four divers and a mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union Pointe-a-Pierre Branch pres­i­dent, Christo­pher Jack­man, yes­ter­day claimed un­qual­i­fied work­ers still hold lead­er­ship po­si­tions at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny.

Speak­ing at the divers’ memo­r­i­al site in Plai­sance Park, near Pointe-a-Pierre, Jack­man said oth­er ac­ci­dents at the Paria fa­cil­i­ties were swept un­der the car­pet since Petrotrin’s clo­sure in 2018 be­cause the union no longer had over­sight.
De­spite sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions made in the CoE re­port, he said as far as he was aware, the on­ly mea­sure im­ple­ment­ed by the com­pa­ny was the es­tab­lish­ment of a com­mit­tee to as­sess the risk of div­ing.

“We cur­rent­ly have with­in Paria, per­sons who do not meet the full re­quire­ments for their job po­si­tions. We cur­rent­ly have work­ing with­in Paria, per­sons who are sup­posed to have a cer­tain de­gree of ma­rine train­ing so they could iden­ti­fy haz­ards and risks on the port.” 

While the na­tion­al fo­cus was on the in­ci­dent in­volv­ing the divers, he said, there were oth­er work­ers in­jured on that site and ex­posed to fires and ex­plo­sions. He claimed that be­fore the in­ci­dent with the divers, an­oth­er work­er’s foot was sev­ered af­ter a pipeline fell on it.

Had this been high­light­ed, he said, the union would have in­ter­vened and per­haps pre­vent­ed the tragedy that claimed the divers’ lives.

Claim­ing that there were un­qual­i­fied em­ploy­ees hold­ing lead­er­ship po­si­tions who were putting work­ers’ lives at risk and op­er­a­tions, he said, “We are call­ing on Paria to iden­ti­fy per­sons, es­pe­cial­ly who are work­ing in these high-risk ar­eas in the port, iden­ti­fy per­sons who are not qual­i­fied for the po­si­tions they hold and re­move them from of­fice. Put some­body there who is qual­i­fied and aware of the risk so that this (divers’ deaths) does not hap­pen again.”

Jack­man al­so re­mind­ed the pub­lic that on Wednes­day, Paria’s op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Col­in Piper and gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed, as well as LM­CS own­er Kaz­im Ali Snr, are ex­pect­ed to an­swer crim­i­nal charges un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act.  
Jack­man, how­ev­er, said the fam­i­lies were still wait­ing for jus­tice and com­pen­sa­tion.
Joined by the divers’ fam­i­lies and friends, Jack­man burned pho­tos of Piper, Mo­hammed, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

LM­CS divers Kaz­im Ali Jnr, Yusuf Hen­ry, Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Na­gas­sar and Christo­pher Boodram were con­duct­ing main­te­nance work in a hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber at Paria’s No 36 Saline ris­er on Berth 6 off Pointe-a-Pierre on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, when they were sucked in­to a 30-inch pipeline dur­ing a Delta P event. Boodram was the lone sur­vivor.

Paria could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.