Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Three of­fi­cials of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed and Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (LM­CS) and the com­pa­nies have been giv­en over three months to de­cide how they want 15 charges un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Act re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent in 2022, which claimed the lives of four LM­CS divers, de­ter­mined.

Dur­ing a hear­ing be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar yes­ter­day, lawyers for the par­ties had no ob­jec­tion to the charges be­ing heard to­geth­er but op­posed the join­ing of the sep­a­rate cas­es.

Lawyers ad­mit­ted that the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty and Agency (OS­HA) had dis­closed most of the ev­i­dence that would be used in pros­e­cut­ing the case.

They claimed that based on the vol­ume of ev­i­dence they would need time to re­view it (the ev­i­dence) and make a de­ci­sion on how the cas­es should be pros­e­cut­ed.

Be­fore ad­journ­ing the case to May 5, Mag­is­trate Chankar or­dered that the dis­clo­sure be com­plet­ed by Feb­ru­ary 28.

OS­HA was rep­re­sent­ed by Pamela El­der, SC, while Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, led Paria’s le­gal team. LM­CS was rep­re­sent­ed by Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly. 

Last Sep­tem­ber, Paria’s gen­er­al man­ag­er Mush­taq Mo­hammed, its ter­mi­nal op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Collin Piper, LM­CS di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr, and the com­pa­nies plead­ed not guilty to the charges as they made their sec­ond court ap­pear­ance be­fore Mag­is­trate Chankar.

Mo­hammed is fac­ing four charges and is ac­cused of fa­cil­i­tat­ing a breach of the OSH Act by fail­ing to pre­pare an emer­gency plan based on a risk as­sess­ment and by fail­ing to en­sure work­ers, in­clud­ing the four de­ceased divers and their col­league who sur­vived, were not ex­posed to a safe­ty risk.

The State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­ny is charged with four of­fences for fail­ing to en­sure that the divers were not ex­posed to risk, for fail­ing to im­ple­ment an emer­gency plan based on a risk as­sess­ment, for fail­ing to re­vise emer­gency plan through con­sul­ta­tion with work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives and for fail­ing to con­duct an an­nu­al as­sess­ment of the po­ten­tial risks to em­ploy­ees of third par­ty con­trac­tors such as the divers.

Piper is ac­cused of al­leged fail­ing to en­sure that em­ploy­ees of third par­ty con­trac­tors were not ex­posed to health and safe­ty risks. 

Ali, whose son was among the de­ceased divers, is fac­ing three charges for ne­glect­ing to en­sure the health, safe­ty and wel­fare of his em­ploy­ees, for fail­ing to per­form an­nu­al risk as­sess­ments and for ne­glect­ing to pro­vide train­ing, in­struc­tions and su­per­vi­sion to en­sure the safe­ty of his work­ers.

His com­pa­ny was charged with fail­ing to per­form a risk as­sess­ment, for fail­ing to en­sure its work­ers’ safe­ty, and fail­ing to pro­vide them with prop­er train­ing and su­per­vi­sion.

On Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022, LM­CS divers Christo­pher Boodram, Fyzal Kur­ban, Rishi Na­gas­sar, Yusuf Hen­ry, and Ali’s son Kaz­im Jr, were sucked in­to the 30-inch pipeline they were per­form­ing main­te­nance work on at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty.

All were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured, but Boodram man­aged to make his way to the en­trance of the pipeline and was res­cued.

LM­CS of­fi­cials were blocked from at­tempt­ing to res­cue their col­leagues.

Three of the divers’ bod­ies were re­cov­ered on Feb­ru­ary 28, while Na­gas­sar’s was re­cov­ered the fol­low­ing day.

Cab­i­net ini­tial­ly ap­point­ed a five-mem­ber team to in­ves­ti­gate the in­ci­dent but even­tu­al­ly ap­point­ed a CoE due to pub­lic crit­i­cism.

In its re­port, the com­mis­sion, chaired by King’s Coun­sel Jerome Lynch, pre­sent­ed sev­er­al dozen rec­om­men­da­tions in­clud­ing charges un­der the OSH Act.

The com­mis­sion al­so rec­om­mend­ed that Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, con­sid­er pros­e­cut­ing Paria for gross neg­li­gence manslaugh­ter.

In Ju­ly, last year, DPP Gas­pard wrote to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for the ini­ti­a­tion of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine whether there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to pros­e­cute any per­son or en­ti­ty.

Around the same time, Paria is­sued a re­lease claim­ing that the LM­CS and the le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies were frus­trat­ing its at­tempts to set­tle com­pen­sa­tion claims.

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s fam­i­lies, de­nied the claims as he called on Paria to pay each of the men’s fam­i­lies $5 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion.

Last year, LM­CS’s le­gal team wrote to Ra­mad­har and Free­dom Law Cham­bers, which is rep­re­sent­ing Nag­gasar’s fam­i­ly and Boodram, sug­gest­ing that they should di­rect their le­gal ac­tion to Paria.

LM­CS’s lawyers dis­missed any im­pu­ta­tion of cul­pa­bil­i­ty at­tached to it by the com­mis­sion and claimed that Paria should be held sole­ly li­able for what tran­spired.

They sug­gest­ed that even if their clients were par­tial­ly re­spon­si­ble for the ini­tial ac­ci­dent as al­leged, Paria’s han­dling of the re­sponse ab­solved it.

LM­CS ad­mit­ted that they owed their work­ers’ fam­i­lies and Boodram com­pen­sa­tion un­der the Work­men’s Com­pen­sa­tion Act but claimed pay­ments could not be made un­til their claim to their in­sur­er was de­ter­mined. The com­pa­ny claimed it pur­sued lit­i­ga­tion over the is­sue af­ter the in­ci­dent but did not re­ceive a re­sponse.

In Oc­to­ber, Boodram and Na­gas­sar’s fam­i­ly filed neg­li­gence law­suits against Paria and LM­CS. Kur­ban and Hen­ry’s fam­i­lies were ex­pect­ed to do the same.