SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has la­belled state­ments made by Op­po­si­tion Leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the ap­point­ment of for­mer En­er­gy Cham­ber chair­man Eu­gene Tiah to the state’s in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee on the Paria div­ing tragedy as “dis­gust­ing.”

Young’s state­ments came on Tues­day af­ter­noon, on the heels of a per­son­al state­ment from Tiah in which Tiah stat­ed he would no longer par­tic­i­pate in the com­mit­tee.

Young stat­ed he was in­formed by En­er­gy Cham­ber that Tiah had stepped down as the Cham­ber’s nom­i­nee to the com­mit­tee. 

“Min­is­ter Young has tak­en care­ful note of the per­son­al at­tacks by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the En­er­gy Cham­ber’s nom­i­nee, as well as on in­ter­na­tion­al multi­na­tion­al en­er­gy com­pa­nies, BP and Shell. These per­son­al, un­war­rant­ed and un­jus­ti­fied at­tacks on in­de­pen­dent per­sons and in­ter­na­tion­al in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ties is dis­turb­ing and de­struc­tive to our Coun­try’s in­ter­ests,” a re­lease from Young’s of­fice stat­ed.

The Min­is­ter went on to say his calls to al­low the fam­i­lies of the four de­ceased divers- Yusuf Hen­ry, Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Na­gas­sar- to “grieve in pace” was ig­nored by the Op­po­si­tion and its “agents.”

“Min­is­ter Young un­re­served­ly con­demns the dis­gust­ing be­hav­iour of Mrs. Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the op­po­si­tion.  The Gov­ern­ment will en­sure that an in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion is car­ried out by pro­fes­sion­al and ex­pe­ri­enced ex­perts in­to the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death of the four LM­CS Lim­it­ed divers. The Gov­ern­ment is un­de­terred in en­sur­ing that the mat­ter is prop­er­ly and thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” the re­lease stat­ed.