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Thursday, May 8, 2025

Ramadhar gives Govt one week to pay $1M to Paria tragedy victims

by

Jesse Ramdeo
29 days ago
20250409
Attorney Prakash Ramadhar and Celisha Kurban, widow of diver Fyzal Kurban, at his Curepe office yesterday.

Attorney Prakash Ramadhar and Celisha Kurban, widow of diver Fyzal Kurban, at his Curepe office yesterday.

Courtesy CNC3

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har has is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, in­sist­ing that the one mil­lion dol­lar ex-gra­tia pay­ment promised to vic­tims of the Paria div­ing tragedy be de­liv­ered with­in one week. Fail­ure to meet this dead­line will re­sult in le­gal ac­tion, he added.

“To­day, with my col­league Ms Saira Lakhan, pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers, and her law firm Mag­nus, we have is­sued a let­ter to the Prime Min­is­ter call­ing up­on him, we do not be­lieve that, with­out prod, this cheque would be forth­com­ing.”

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at his of­fice in Curepe yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­lies of Fyzal Kur­ban and Yusuff Hen­ry, con­firmed that a let­ter was sent to the Prime Min­is­ter urg­ing him to ho­n­our the pay­ment.

“We know the suf­fer­ings these fam­i­lies have had to en­dure, and this pay­ment promised, we want it ma­te­ri­alised in­to a cheque ... be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter him­self has spo­ken to de­liv­er to Ms Kur­ban and Aaliyah’s mom the cheque of one mil­lion dol­lars in one week’s time, which is the 14th of April.”

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, LM­CS work­ers Christo­pher Boodram, Kaz­im Ali Jnr, Yusuf Hen­ry, Rishi Na­gas­sar, and Fyzal Kur­ban were sucked in­to a 36-inch pipeline while do­ing re­pairs at Paria Fu­el’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty. Boodram man­aged to swim out and, when he got to the sur­face, plead­ed with those present to as­sist his col­leagues, who were still alive but in­jured, in the pipeline. How­ev­er, Paria was ac­cused of pre­vent­ing res­cue ef­forts.

Dur­ing last Thurs­day’s post-Cab­i­net meet­ing, Prime Min­is­ter Young an­nounced the pay­ment to the rel­a­tives of the four de­ceased divers as well as the lone sur­vivor.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned the tim­ing of the move and al­leged it was an elec­tion ploy.

Ra­mad­har cau­tioned the Gov­ern­ment against de­lay­ing the dis­burse­ment.

“He made it po­lit­i­cal. The coun­try will hear, and they will make a de­ci­sion as to what sort of gov­ern­ment and what sort of word we have, and ul­ti­mate­ly, as I re­peat, we will take le­gal ac­tion in due course.”

Ra­mad­har fur­ther con­tend­ed that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul should al­so play his part in en­sur­ing the trans­ac­tion is com­plet­ed on time.

“I want to tell Paria and all the lawyers who have re­fused us re­peat­ed­ly, pre-ac­tion pro­to­cols ... and any li­a­bil­i­ty, even af­ter the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry that we spent un­told mil­lions on, is not their fault. Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s com­mis­sion has found all of these things; they had de­nied li­a­bil­i­ty. When you look at the lawyers’ fees, how many mil­lions? And you’re telling me the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance can’t find a five?”

Mean­while, Cel­isha Kur­ban, wid­ow of Fyzal Kur­ban, de­tailed the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges her fam­i­ly has been en­dur­ing to en­sure her daugh­ter com­pletes her ter­tiary-lev­el stud­ies in me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary in Cana­da.

She not­ed that the mon­ey will not on­ly help fund tu­ition ex­pens­es but al­so re­duce mount­ing debt.

Kur­ban said, “She (my daugh­ter) had to work three jobs and go to school and study. She was tu­tor­ing a child at once, then at a restau­rant as a cashier and at an­oth­er stall in a mall to clean out on an evening to make ends meet. I had to sell a lot of as­sets to make ends meet; it has been very chal­leng­ing.”

Ra­mad­har main­tained that the fam­i­lies are not seek­ing char­i­ty but what has been pledged by the state in good faith.

Ef­forts by Guardian Me­dia to con­tact Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful up to late yes­ter­day.


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