RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chair­woman of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, Nyree Al­fon­so, has con­firmed that the $1 mil­lion promised by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to fam­i­lies of four divers and one sur­vivor in the 2022 Paria div­ing tragedy has not been paid.

Al­fon­so was speak­ing with re­porters on Thurs­day dur­ing re­fur­bish­ment work at St Pe­ter’s Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School, which was par­tial­ly burnt last week in what fire­fight­ers sus­pect to be ar­son.

Pledg­ing that the school would be ready for oc­cu­pa­tion on Mon­day, Alphon­so said the re­fur­bish­ment project cost more than $500,000 and in­volved over 45 vol­un­teers.

Ad­dress­ing the $1 mil­lion pledge made to the divers, Alphon­so said, “On the po­lit­i­cal hus­tings, the for­mer prime min­is­ter would have in­di­cat­ed that an ex gra­tia pay­ment of a mil­lion dol­lars per fam­i­ly would be giv­en. I don’t have any in­for­ma­tion as to what hap­pened to that. I don’t know if that was an of­fer or a pro­nounce­ment. I know it was not paid, but cer­tain­ly, we are mov­ing to see how all of the claims can be set­tled in the short­est pe­ri­od of time. But again, in ac­cor­dance with the law, the in­sur­ers in­volved, we al­so have to ma­noeu­vre be­tween the in­sur­ers as well.”

On the Paria div­ing tragedy, Alphon­so said the new board, in place since mid-Ju­ly, was work­ing to re­solve the mat­ter. “We’re giv­ing it our best en­deav­ours, and we think our best en­deav­ours will bear fruit in the good­ness of time, not too long from now.”

On sup­port for the divers’ fam­i­lies, Alphon­so said, “Ul­ti­mate­ly, as I said, we are try­ing to sort our way through the in­sur­ers, the at­tor­neys who have made claims and so on. It’s cer­tain­ly high on our pri­or­i­ty list. If we can’t get things done in the short­er term, then we may have to look at an in­ter­im po­si­tion. But over­all, the feel­ing is that this mat­ter should be brought to an end.”

Com­mend­ing her team for help­ing over 300 stu­dents of St Pe­ter’s Pri­ma­ry School get ready for the new term, Alphon­so said, “We’ve had tremen­dous ef­fort by the staff and em­ploy­ees of Paria and Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um. We’ve giv­en it our all to make sure that come Mon­day, the 8th of Sep­tem­ber, all the stu­dents of the school will be ac­com­mo­dat­ed.”

On the cause of the school fire, Alphon­so said, “In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing so that we don’t have a de­fin­i­tive po­si­tion from the fire ser­vices or the TTPS. I would cer­tain­ly like to see the in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­clud­ed, and if it was ar­son or any oth­er ma­li­cious source, that the per­pe­tra­tor be in some way found and pros­e­cut­ed.”

She al­so re­vealed that the last school board was un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“St Pe­ter’s School is a pri­vate school, so I’m hear­ing, just like every mem­ber of the pub­lic, that there was an in­ves­ti­ga­tion with re­spect to the last board of the school,” she said.

When asked if sim­i­lar sup­port would be giv­en to the chil­dren of the dead divers, Alphon­so said no re­quest has been made to the new Paria board for sup­port with school prepa­ra­tion. She said, how­ev­er, that if such a re­quest is made, it will be giv­en favourable con­sid­er­a­tion.

On 25 Feb­ru­ary 2022, Kaz­im Ali Jnr, Yusuf Hen­ry, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Fyzal Kur­ban, and Christo­pher Boodram were sucked in­to a 36-inch pipeline from a hy­per­bar­ic cham­ber while work­ing for Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd and Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS). In­ves­ti­ga­tors deemed the in­ci­dent to have re­sult­ed from “gross and con­se­quent­ly crim­i­nal” neg­li­gence.

Boodram sur­vived, but the oth­ers died.