MSJ: Fire 'callous' Paria board, management

THE Movement for Social Justice is demanding the suspension and firing of the board and management which were in the employ of Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd when four divers died on February 25, while the commission of enquiry (CoE) is taking place.

MSJ Political Leader David Abdulah said on Sunday while they continue to live very comfortable lives, enjoying the best salaries and taking care of themselves and their families, the families of the four divers Fyzal Kurban , Kazim Ali Jr, Yusuff Henry, Rishi Nagassar and the lone survivor, Christopher Boodram, are suffering psychological trauma of losing their loved ones.

“The MSJ is demanding that those persons in the entire management and the board, from Paria and Heritage, must be fired and must be held accountable.

“One would hope they could be held criminally liable for the deaths of the four divers. Somebody must be held liable. They must pay a price.

“This cannot continue, when people make decisions that impact on people’s life this way and nothing happen to them and they continue to live very comfortably.”

At MSJ’s Sunday news conference, Abdulah claimed the evidence in the CoE demonstrated the callousness of company officials to send a team to rescue the divers who were still alive.

Insisting that those who still presided over the state-run company should not continue to receive salaries "courtesy taxpayers," Abdulah claimed a lack of human care, alleging that coast guard members had prevented divers from rescuing the four men trapped in the pipe.

He referenced the evidence of Paria’s Technical and Maintenance Manager Michael Wei about it being too risky to rescue the LMCS divers who were doing sub-sea maintenance work for Paria in Berth 6 of the Pointe-a-Pierre harbour.

“Risk assessment should have been properly done before the job started. That did not happen and that is where the first failure lay,” Abdulah claimed.

He equated the prevention of sending divers down to rescue the men like “signing their death warrants,” claiming that the company was prepared to recover rather than rescue at an early stage, even though, Abdulah claims, the men were showing they were still alive by knocking on the 30-inch diameter pipelines in which they were trapped.

He cited the Boodram's claim that he was placed in the covid ward at a hospital and no real effort was made to get him into a decompression chamber.

He denounced the treatment of the families of the four divers who he said spent days and nights in the rain at the Pointe-a-Pierre car park, waiting to get word from the company.

He recalled the MSJ was there on many of those nights when good Samaritans provided the grieving family with food, water, tents, chairs, lights and other amenities, which, he said, the company should have provided.

Abdulah was also very critical of the Wei’s claim that Paria's response was excellent.

Abdulah said he was happy the matter was being televised and all documents were available for the public to see and follow.

He placed blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of the Prime Minister for his decision to shut down Petrotrin and send all workers’ home.

He said the restructured company which includes Paria and Heritage were based on a BP model that would have no collective agreement, no trade union representation to provide check sand balances on management decisions.