Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Com­mis­sion of En­quiry’s re­port on the Paria div­ing tragedy is be­ing prop­er­ly re­viewed by Paria’s Fu­el’s board and “oth­ers.” As such, it would be im­prop­er for Gov­ern­ment to over­ride what is go­ing on and “jump in” a state com­pa­ny to make com­pen­sa­tion.

This was in­di­cat­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to Op­po­si­tion ques­tions on com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­lies of the LM­CS divers in­volved in the Feb­ru­ary 2022 tragedy.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP David Lee had asked Row­ley to state if Gov­ern­ment had con­sid­ered of­fer­ing com­pen­sa­tion, ei­ther through Paria or oth­er av­enues, giv­en that the fi­nal re­port of the CoE in­to the mat­ter had rec­om­mend­ed that com­pen­sa­tion be giv­en to fam­i­lies of the vic­tims.

Row­ley replied, “As you will be aware, there was this un­speak­able tragedy that took place in Pointe-a-Pierre ap­prox­i­mate­ly two years ago. Ini­tial­ly, the Gov­ern­ment’s re­ac­tion was to ask Paria to have ex­perts in the area to go in and de­ter­mine what’s hap­pened so we can speed­i­ly move to­wards some un­der­stand­ing.”

But he said the Op­po­si­tion de­mand­ed a CoE and Paria par­tic­i­pat­ed in this.

“We now have the re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry with rec­om­men­da­tions. Suf­fice it to say, this mat­ter re­mains main­ly a le­gal mat­ter of li­a­bil­i­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and it would be quite un­usu­al at this stage for the Gov­ern­ment to over­ride the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and role of the board and oth­er en­ti­ties in­volved,” he said.

“So, the mat­ter is be­ing re­viewed as far as I’m aware. The find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions—rec­om­men­da­tions they are, of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry. And the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment, even though Paria is a state-owned en­ti­ty, the Gov­ern­ment is not now in a po­si­tion to over­ride those sit­u­a­tions and we’ll await the out­come, since there are se­ri­ous le­gal con­sid­er­a­tions for all as­pects of tax­pay­ers in T&T.”

Row­ley de­nied UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal’s query on if he (PM) was sug­gest­ing that any at­tempts to help the fam­i­lies with com­pen­sa­tion can on­ly be con­sid­ered af­ter a pro­tract­ed le­gal process em­a­nat­ing from the CoE re­port.

Row­ley said, “I said no such thing—I said there are se­ri­ous le­gal ex­po­sure for the tax­pay­ers at all lev­els with re­spect to re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and I said the sit­u­a­tion is be­ing prop­er­ly re­viewed by a board of Paria—a state en­ti­ty—and oth­ers- there­fore, it would be im­prop­er for me to take any po­si­tion as in­clined by (Mooni­lal).”

Paria spent $9m

on lawyers’ fees

On Mooni­lal’s query on the amount spent in le­gal fees by Paria for the CoE, with the spe­cif­ic amount paid to Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Ja­son Mot­to, the Prime Min­is­ter said the fig­ures avail­able at this time showed that Paria had spent to date $8.548 mil­lion, with a fur­ther $899,513.17 be­ing processed for pay­ment.

Mooni­lal, not­ing Paria spent al­most $9 mil­lion on fees, asked if Row­ley was sat­is­fied that $22 mil­lion was spent on the CoE, in­clud­ing Paria’s fees, yet fam­i­lies haven’t re­ceived “a cent com­pen­sa­tion.”

Row­ley said, “There are process­es and process­es.”

Mooni­lal again asked when Gov­ern­ment would as­sist “these fam­i­lies be­fore all of dem die.”

Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde, who presided over the seg­ment on the Paria is­sues rather than House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George, said that was “asked and an­swered.”

But Row­ley, say­ing the Op­po­si­tion was car­ry­ing the mat­ter as “some cause cele­bre,” added they (fam­i­lies) will not die be­cause some of the peo­ple in­volved—whether Paria or LM­CS —had al­ready earned $50 mil­lion odd from Paria and he didn’t ex­pect any­body to “starve to death” where the two com­pa­nies were in­volved.

“The process­es will take place and it’s im­prop­er to in­vite the Gov­ern­ment to now over­ride the process­es to sat­is­fy them,” he said.

Row­ley said he was be­ing in­vit­ed to take gov­ern­men­tal ac­tion that was out of step with the process­es.

“I said the sit­u­a­tion is be­ing re­viewed in the con­text of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry’s state­ments, that’s on the way and that’s as far as the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­pared to go at this time, rather than over­ride what’s go­ing on—what are you invit­ing us to do? Jump in a state com­pa­ny and make com­pen­sa­tion from the Gov­ern­ment? How’s that go­ing to be done? I’ll not be ad­vised to do that and the Gov­ern­ment will not do that!”

Row­ley said up­on re­view of the cir­cum­stances, Paria has the au­thor­i­ty, as a state en­ter­prise, to take any ac­tion it re­quires to take and be pro­tect­ed un­der law.

Row­ley added, “The mat­ter is be­ing re­viewed by Paria. I don’t know who else is re­view­ing it. I’ve not said what the out­come of the re­view will be and I will not be drawn in­to this sit­u­a­tion as my col­leagues are invit­ing me to be. Some­thing is un­der­way—let it take its course! Be­cause the Gov­ern­ment can­not act capri­cious­ly to please any­body, in­clud­ing am­bu­lance chasers!”

Mooni­lal, who said it wasn’t about how much com­pa­nies were paid, asked how much was paid to fam­i­lies and chil­dren

Row­ley said, “This isn’t a mat­ter for the Gov­ern­ment to jump in. This is a mat­ter where a state com­pa­ny has an ac­ci­dent in a sit­u­a­tion where a con­tract was be­ing ex­e­cut­ed by a pri­vate com­pa­ny. So the Gov­ern­ment can­not just jump in and de­cide to pay com­pen­sa­tion willy-nil­ly all over the place. We have to fol­low process­es ... the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is not at this time in­volved in this mat­ter.”

Paria board sta­tus

a mat­ter for Cab­i­net

Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley was grilled on whether it was good prac­tice for Paria’s board to ad­ju­di­cate on the CoE re­port’s find­ings.

Re­ply­ing to UNC’s David Lee, Row­ley said, “If the present board doesn’t do it, which board does he want to do it?”

UNC MP Mooni­lal asked if Row­ley was sug­gest­ing if Paria’s board, which has been found want­i­ng by the CoE, is now in charge of as­sess­ing the re­port and fur­ther ac­tion to be tak­en.

“... That seems in­com­pre­hen­si­ble! Does the Prime Min­is­ter be­lieve that board should be fired forth­with, giv­en that they’ve been named in that re­port as neg­li­gent?” Mooni­lal added.

Row­ley said this was a se­ri­ous le­gal mat­ter and re­gard­less of who is in of­fice at Paria, “Paria will take ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal ad­vice in treat­ing with any and all as­pects of this mat­ter, notwith­stand­ing the ad­vice in court that’s free ...”

Mooni­lal asked if the PM didn’t be­lieve that it was un­ten­able for the cur­rent board that had been found want­i­ng to take le­gal ad­vice to help them­selves.

Row­ley said the board’s sta­tus, “... Is a mat­ter for the Cab­i­net.”