UNC: Paria board must resign

The United National Congress (UNC) says the board of Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd, including its chairman Newman George, should resign.

Five divers Fyzal Kurban, Rishi Nagassar, Yusuf Henry, Kazim Ali Jr and Christopher Boodram were sucked into a 30-inch pipeline at Berth 6 of Paria Fuel Trading Co, Pointe-a-Pierre on February 25. The sole survivor was Boodram. This resulted in a national outpouring of grief over the incident.

In its weekly press briefing on Sunday, Opposition MPs for Couva South Rudranath Indarsingh, Chaguanas West Dinesh Rambally and for Mayaro Rushton Paray addressed the matter.

Indarsingh asked why the Government was delaying in asking the board to resign.

He said the company had difficulty to “extend even the scantiest of courtesies to the families of these divers.”

“Paria is not a private company.

He said from a management point of view, the board and its management team should be sent on leave. He also said the board could not remain in place as their mere presence could influence the outcome of an independent and objective investigation.

Indarsingh and his colleagues also do not have confidence in the five-member committee set up to investigate the Paria tragedy.

“The track record of this Government as it relates to the appointment of committees under their watch has brought little confidence. It has instilled little or no trust within the tax payers of this country based on the track record of this Government in terms of how they have dealt with the appointment of so-called independent committees and how they have dealt with reports when they have been finalised by these committees,” he said.

Paray said that the skills required – such as technical expertise in under-sea operations – to do a thorough investigation was missing.

Rambally asked if the 45-day timeline was too long for the report, he said, a shorter time frame should be looked at as the longer the timeline took, the more people’s memories and recall could be infiltrated with commentary.