Untenable

ANY DOUBT that action should have been taken to remove the upper levels of the Paria Fuel Trading Company in the wake of the tragic events of this year has been completely dispelled by this week’s proceedings of the commission of enquiry appointed to investigate those events.

The enquiry is ongoing, and there will be many in official circles who will prefer to await formal findings of fact in next year’s report from chairman Jerome Lynch, KC, and his team.

But there are many reasons why it has become impossible for the State to justify its failure to remove the personnel responsible for or in some way involved in the nightmare scenario that took the lives of four men and shattered the well-being of countless other people in February.

The State’s own independent regulator, the Occupational Safety and Health Agency, has found that the root cause of the accident earlier this year was “the failure by both the client, Paria, and the contractor, LMCS, to recognise that a latent hazardous differential pressure condition, Delta P, would have been created.”

Relying on the expertise of a specialist company hired to review all the material facts, OSHA avers that if the risks had been appreciated, then “simple mitigation steps and/or change in methodology could have been instituted.”

This alone is an appalling indictment of all concerned.

However, the aftermath of the accident, too, lays out a compelling case for why heads must roll.

Lawyers and experts and company officials may butt heads and debate the niceties of who should have known what and when. They may quibble over whether the event was foreseeable. They may play a game of passing the buck and question who really is at fault for removing a key plug.

But the evidence heard this week makes it plain enough that the overall response of all the parties amounted to a headless chicken attempting to solve a problem. That was an embarrassing situation which no official can be proud of nor stand by.

Government officials might wish to delay taking action.

But Paria is a going concern. There’s a real need for proper systems to be in place and for confidence in the company’s operations.

In addition to the pain and trauma of the horrific circumstances endured by the victims, alive and dead, what is most appalling about all that has come to light is that despite all the experience and, potentially, expertise at its disposal, Paria did not do better.

Not only have families lost their loved ones as a result, but the whole country has lost and will continue to lose unless concerted steps are taken to plan adequately for such eventualities and, if they come to pass, to carry out those plans. Lives depend on it.