Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Can­da­cy Phillip, wid­ow of rig work­er Pe­te Phillip, is ap­peal­ing to new­ly ap­point­ed Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young to help her get clo­sure.

In the days fol­low­ing the De­cem­ber 22 col­lapse of Well Ser­vices Rig 110, Young, who is al­so the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, had in­di­cat­ed that he was re­ceiv­ing dai­ly briefs and mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion. He al­so vis­it­ed the Trin­mar Ma­rine Base while search ef­forts were on­go­ing and met with some of Phillip’s rel­a­tives.

Wid­owed at just 35 with five young chil­dren in­clud­ing a three-week-old ba­by, Can­da­cy said life with­out her hus­band has not been easy but she is try­ing to cope.

In an in­ter­view at her La Ro­main home yes­ter­day, she said it was hard know­ing that her hus­band’s body was lo­cat­ed two months ago but still has not been re­trieved.

She said she has not heard from Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd since March 7.

“They said they did not want to promise us like the last time when they said the 1st of March and then this come and hap­pen.”

While she con­tin­ues to re­ceive week­ly fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from the com­pa­ny, Can­da­cy said the fam­i­ly needs clo­sure and she’s hop­ing that Young in­ter­venes.

“I just want clo­sure and for the process to speed up in terms of get­ting him. I know I will not get a body but, you know, bones, skele­ton.”

She said her ba­by boy, Jevon Pe­te Phillip, born on Feb­ru­ary 23 at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, is “re­al good” but she is sad that her hus­band nev­er got to see him.

She said the oth­er chil­dren are miss­ing their fa­ther and her two old­er sons, who are both sit­ting the up­com­ing Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion, have fall­en back in their school work.

Phillip’s el­dest son from a pre­vi­ous re­la­tion­ship is prepar­ing for the Caribbean Sec­ondary En­trance Cer­tifi­cate ex­am­i­na­tion. Can­da­cy, who had been mar­ried to Phillip for 14 years, said he had planned to con­tin­ue ren­o­va­tions on their home and con­struct an up­per floor.

“He was hard­work­ing, and al­ways take care of his fam­i­ly. He had a lot of plans. The house still needs a lot of work. He was plan­ning to do the ceil­ing and up­stairs. Pe­te built it for him­self, do most of the work, lit­tle by lit­tle,” she said.

In an up­date on March 7 on sal­vage and re­cov­ery op­er­a­tions for Phillip, Well Ser­vices said that giv­en the na­ture of the op­er­a­tion, spe­cif­ic stip­u­la­tions set forth by the in­sur­ance com­pa­ny and the in­ter­na­tion­al con­trac­tor have con­tributed to de­lays. The com­pa­ny stat­ed that these re­quire­ments are cru­cial for en­sur­ing com­pli­ance and min­imis­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact, ne­ces­si­tat­ing care­ful at­ten­tion and co­or­di­na­tion.

Young was con­tact­ed for a com­ment via What­sApp but has not re­spond­ed.