At­tor­ney for the fam­i­lies of Fyzal Kur­ban and Yusuf Hen­ry, Prakash Ra­mad­har, has called on Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to act speed­i­ly in pro­vid­ing Gov­ern­ment with the fi­nal re­port of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) on the LM­CS/ Paria div­ing tragedy.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ram­da­har al­so called on Kan­ga­loo to use her of­fice to seek an ex­pe­dit­ed dis­pen­sa­tion of the re­port in­to the pub­lic do­main. He said it trou­bled him that the law man­dat­ed that the Com­mis­sion could on­ly present the re­port to Kan­ga­loo, and she could on­ly pass it to the Gov­ern­ment.

“I would shud­der to imag­ine that any re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment would not make the re­port pub­lic. I ex­pect that they will, but my ex­pec­ta­tions are bound based on what is com­mon de­cen­cy and what is prop­er. But there is al­so an­oth­er fac­tor: time­li­ness, the pre­sen­ta­tion of this re­port to the pub­lic,” Ra­mad­har said.

Ra­mad­har con­grat­u­lat­ed the Com­mis­sion, say­ing he felt re­lieved that the re­port was ready, and wait­ed with bat­ed breath to see the word­ing.

He and the fam­i­lies be­lieve the re­port will be ro­bust.

“I was very con­fi­dent know­ing that Mr Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj was head of the le­gal team and what­ev­er was re­quired to en­sure that no stone was left un­turned and for there to be no cov­er-up once he was present and, of course, the chair­man and his fel­low com­mis­sion­er. And dur­ing the hear­ing, I felt a lev­el of con­fi­dence.”

Ra­mad­har said Com­mis­sion Chair­man Jerome Lynch made cru­cial state­ments, in­clud­ing that the divers’ deaths were not an act of God and that it was no ac­ci­dent. He said this was the fam­i­lies’ po­si­tion and that the divers would not have died if those with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ex­er­cised their du­ty to res­cue.

He main­tained that re­sources were avail­able and even Kur­ban’s son, Michael, was will­ing to save his fa­ther, but Paria’s man­age­ment and the Coast Guard pre­vent­ed him.

Ramd­har re­it­er­at­ed Lynch’s state­ment that no one took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the deaths and re­called a Paria of­fi­cial rat­ing their emer­gency re­sponse as ex­cel­lent dur­ing the ev­i­den­tial hear­ing of the CoE and said it was ob­scene and ab­surd.

Ra­mad­har said the CoE’s $15.5 mil­lion ex­pen­di­ture did not in­clude the le­gal costs in­curred by Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and oth­er par­ties, which could lead to mil­lions of dol­lars. De­spite the ex­pen­di­ture, he said there was no pay­ment to the divers’ fam­i­lies who suf­fered the most and agreed with Lynch that the fam­i­lies should have re­ceived an ex-gra­tia pay­ment as some of his clients were chil­dren at school with­out a fa­ther and bread­win­ner.

Whether or not the Gov­ern­ment shares the re­port pub­licly, Ra­mad­har said the fam­i­ly will pro­ceed to file le­gal ac­tion against all those con­sid­ered li­able.

“We hope and ex­pect those li­able will do the right and de­cent thing and make an ex-gra­tia pay­ment so the fam­i­lies will no longer suf­fer.”

Kur­ban’s wid­ow, Cel­isha Kur­ban, said she was pleased that the re­port was ready and did not want a lengthy de­lay in get­ting a copy. She was al­so sat­is­fied with what Lynch had to say in his fi­nal ad­dress.