For­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young has de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries to refuse to dis­close its in­ves­tiga­tive re­port in­to an in­dus­tri­al ac­ci­dent at Ni­Quan En­er­gy’s Pointe-a-Pierre plant, which claimed the life of an em­ploy­ee of a third-par­ty con­trac­tor.

On Fri­day, Jus­tice Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams up­held a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit brought by for­mer Massy En­er­gy En­gi­neered So­lu­tions Lim­it­ed (MEES) plant fit­ter Al­lan­lane Ramkissoon’s wid­ow Sarah against the min­istry over its re­fusal to dis­close the re­port com­piled by min­istry of­fi­cials.

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, Young sought to ex­plain the de­ci­sion which was made while he served as En­er­gy Min­is­ter be­fore he was ap­point­ed to briefly serve as prime min­is­ter be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion in April.

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism from his suc­ces­sor, new­ly ap­point­ed En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who claimed that he was shocked over the han­dling of the re­port, Young said that the de­ci­sion was based on ad­vice from in­de­pen­dent State at­tor­neys and Se­nior Coun­sel.

“What the news­pa­per re­ports and of course, Mooni­lal failed to in­di­cate, is that Ni­Quan, an en­ti­ty that would be af­fect­ed by the re­lease of the re­port, re­fused to con­sent to the re­port be­ing re­leased and ac­cord­ing this could have ex­posed the Min­istry of En­er­gy and ar­guably its staff mem­bers to li­a­bil­i­ty should the re­port have been re­leased,” Young said.

“Mooni­lal be­lieved that he could throw some shade but it is not well found­ed, in fact, un­sur­pris­ing­ly, it is mis­placed, as the mat­ter was be­ing prop­er­ly han­dled for the Min­istry of En­er­gy by ex­pe­ri­enced Se­nior Coun­sel and State at­tor­neys,” he added.

Young sought to re­fer to gas projects that were de­vel­oped un­der his tenure.

“All of these projects and many more that are to come were ne­go­ti­at­ed and se­cured pri­or to May 2025, so I un­der­stand Mooni­lal’s angst,” Young said.

The ac­ci­dent oc­curred around 1 am on June 15, 2023, while Ramkissoon and his col­leagues were per­form­ing main­te­nance work on Ni­Quan’s plant.

Ramkissoon, 35, a fa­ther of two from Bar­rack­pore, was re­port­ed­ly dis­con­nect­ing a ni­tro­gen hose from an in­jec­tion point when a fire ig­nit­ed and en­gulfed him.

Ramkissoon was re­moved on a stretch­er and was al­leged­ly made to sit on a chair in the carpark while he wait­ed for the ar­rival of an am­bu­lance for close to an hour.

He was tak­en to a pri­vate hos­pi­tal in San Fer­nan­do be­fore be­ing trans­ferred via air am­bu­lance to a hos­pi­tal in Bo­go­ta, Co­lum­bia, for spe­cial­ist med­ical care due to the sever­i­ty of his in­juries.

Ramkissoon even­tu­al­ly suc­cumbed to his in­juries on June 18, 2021.

The min­istry, un­der the tenure of for­mer min­ster of En­er­gy and prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, ini­ti­at­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent.

In her judg­ment, Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams ruled that the min­istry had not pre­sent­ed suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy its de­ci­sion to de­ny her re­quest in late 2023.

She found that there was sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est war­rant­i­ng dis­clo­sure.

She al­so took is­sue with the min­istry re­ly­ing on Ni­Quan’s po­si­tion on the dis­clo­sure of an­oth­er re­port on a sep­a­rate non-fa­tal ac­ci­dent in 2021 for deny­ing the re­quest made by Ramkissoon.

“Un­doubt­ed­ly, this is a far more se­ri­ous in­ci­dent and Ni­Quan should have ad­dressed its mind to that,” she said.

“It ap­pears to this court that the de­fen­dant’s un­will­ing­ness to dis­close the re­port arose through se­cre­cy and rea­sons of self-preser­va­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in re­gard to the fact that the claimant is de­sirous of pur­su­ing lit­i­ga­tion,” she added.

Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams al­so point­ed out that the min­istry’s of­fi­cials had a du­ty to seek the views of in­di­vid­u­als and en­ti­ties in the re­port be­fore com­plet­ing it.

“The min­istry can­not use a breach of their du­ty as an ex­cuse to keep the re­port se­cret un­der the guise of pub­lic in­ter­est,” she said.

‘Need for trans­paren­cy’

In a state­ment is­sued on Sat­ur­day, Ramkissoon’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, said the out­come of the case re­in­forces the need for gov­ern­ments to be trans­par­ent and ac­count­able.

Ram­lo­gan re­ferred to five cas­es un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ten-year stint in gov­ern­ment, in which in­de­pen­dent probes were com­mis­sioned but the re­ports were not re­leased.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, once the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed, the very gov­ern­ment that made the pub­lic promise would de­ny ag­griev­ed cit­i­zens their right to ac­cess the in­ves­tiga­tive re­port, there­by frus­trat­ing and pre­vent­ing their pur­suit of jus­tice,” Ram­lo­gan said.

He stat­ed that as the in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­duct­ed us­ing tax­pay­ers’ funds, dis­clo­sure is im­per­a­tive.

“Sup­press­ing and hid­ing these re­ports is the hall­mark of dic­ta­tor­ship and shows con­tempt for the peo­ple,” he said.

“The mon­ey the gov­ern­ment spent de­fend­ing this case could have in­stead been giv­en to the wid­ow. This was a clas­sic case of de­fend­ing the in­de­fen­si­ble,” he added.