DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young yes­ter­day de­fend­ed Gov­ern­ment’s $1 mil­lion ex-gra­tia pay­ment to each of the vic­tims of the Paria Fu­el div­ing tragedy, in the face of con­dem­na­tion from oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

He al­so clar­i­fied who tru­ly tied Gov­ern­ment’s hands and pre­vent­ed the vic­tims’ loved ones from re­ceiv­ing any com­pen­sa­tion soon­er.

Af­ter meet­ing and greet­ing stu­dents and sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) while walk­ing along Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road to file his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at the Bel­mont Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day, Young faced tough ques­tions from the me­dia on the $5 mil­lion pay­out to the Paria vic­tims.

Asked whether his pre­de­ces­sor, prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, had de­layed the de­ci­sion, Young said, “That is an easy ques­tion to an­swer. The an­swer is no.”

Re­flect­ing on the 2022 tragedy, Young ex­plained that he had re­turned to T&T with Row­ley from Qatar, hav­ing at­tend­ed the Gas Ex­port­ing Coun­tries Fo­rum in mid-Feb­ru­ary. He said the first thing he did up­on learn­ing of the in­ci­dent was to in­struct those in­volved not to ob­struct the re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion.

He al­so point­ed out it was the Op­po­si­tion who called for a com­mis­sion of in­quiry af­ter re­ject­ing a gov­ern­ment-ap­point­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

“I am on­ly in con­trol of the present, and that is the de­ci­sion that is made. So, the of­fer has been made to the fam­i­lies. Crit­i­cisms will come as peo­ple are en­ti­tled to crit­i­cise. I ex­pect that in pub­lic life. But what I am cer­tain of is I did it with pure in­ten­tions, and I have done what I can in the po­si­tion that I now hold. And let the rest lie.”

Mean­while, in Siparia, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no praise for Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion. Speak­ing short­ly af­ter fil­ing her nom­i­na­tion pa­pers, she said for al­most 10 years the Gov­ern­ment de­liv­ered noth­ing and this lat­est of­fer proved that the PNM’s promis­es nev­er ma­te­ri­alise.

“Too lit­tle, too late,” she re­marked about the of­fer.

She added, “Just last year, I think they were say­ing they don’t want to fund willy-nil­ly. So, where did you get a mil­lion dol­lars? Did you pick it out of a hat? How did you ar­rive at that fig­ure? I think it’s an elec­tion gim­mick. It may even amount to elec­tion bribery. It’s a very, very shame­less act to an­nounce, just days be­fore the elec­tion, that you’re go­ing to pay the fam­i­lies when you couldn’t do so be­fore.”

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day was equal­ly crit­i­cal, ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of throw­ing “crumbs” at the fam­i­lies in the run-up to the elec­tion.

“You suf­fer peo­ple for four and a half years, OK? That’s what you do. And then in an elec­tion year, or months be­fore, you throw crumbs at them!” Pan­day said.

Young’s chal­lenger for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Philip Alexan­der, al­so took aim at him.

“Yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), he showed that there’s no low that is too low for them. He of­fered to throw a bone to peo­ple who have been suf­fer­ing for years—the fam­i­lies of the divers. I nev­er politi­cised it,” he said.

He added, “Christo­pher Boodram and the rest of the fam­i­lies, they are hurt. He has re-bul­lied them with that dis­gust­ing ex-gra­tia pay­ment while drag­ging them through the courts, fight­ing for some kind of re­lief.”

But Young re­spond­ed, ar­gu­ing that it was, in fact, the Op­po­si­tion who had politi­cised the is­sue.

“Dr Row­ley had been ask­ing, ‘Can this thing not be sped up? What is go­ing on?’” he said.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that his free­dom to take fur­ther ac­tion was lim­it­ed due to the on­go­ing le­gal bat­tles be­tween the vic­tims and the com­pa­nies in­volved, Young re­it­er­at­ed that the de­lay was not caused by the for­mer PM.

“No, my hands con­tin­ue to be bound by the lawyers, by the in­sur­ers, by the com­pa­nies, and this type of thing,” Young said.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so con­demned the lawyers rep­re­sent­ing the rel­a­tives who have filed law­suits against both Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices (LM­CS) and the state-owned Paria Fu­el Trad­ing.

“One is the head of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty who has in­sert­ed him­self in­to the elec­tion, mean­ing COP. The oth­er one is our for­mer dis­graced at­tor­ney gen­er­al,” Young said, re­fer­ring to Prakash Ra­mad­har, Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader, and for­mer UNC at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

He blamed them for slow­ing the process.

“The in­sur­ers and the lawyers have their ways. They were frus­trat­ing. They are the cause for why this has tak­en so long,” Young claimed.

Mean­while, LM­CS head Kaz­im Ali Se­nior, whose son Kaz­im Ali Jr was among the vic­tims of the Paria tragedy, yes­ter­day said he had not heard from Young. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cern that re­veal­ing the $1 mil­lion fig­ure had placed the vic­tims’ rel­a­tives in jeop­ardy.

“In my opin­ion, he should have kept that fig­ure se­cret. By dis­clos­ing the amount, he’s now put a tar­get on their backs. If you re­call, they went through great trou­ble not to re­lease the fig­ures the lawyers were be­ing paid for the same rea­son. And here you go, putting five peo­ple with big tar­gets on their backs. In the case of the wives, sup­pos­ing she has no­body, her hus­band isn’t there to de­fend her,” he said.