No secrecy on Paria report

On Wednesday, the Government requested time to respond to a question from the Opposition Whip regarding the status of the final report of the Paria Commission of Enquiry (CoE) in the House of Representatives.

The delay was reasonable, given that the substantial report had been submitted to the President on November 30 and Cabinet should be allowed an opportunity to review and weigh the consequences of a report that took months to complete.

But the Prime Minister should not tempt the public's patience for dithering around its formal response regarding this specific CoE report. After the harrowing deaths of four of the five divers contracted for maintenance work on a 30-inch underwater pipeline at Paria Fuel Trading in February 2022, the families grief and the tone-deaf responses of Paria have captivated the public. The Prime Minister must also be aware that the unqualified summary of the commission's chairman, Jerome Lynch, KC, announcing the CoE's findings in November, was direct and straightforward. "This was no act of God or mere unlucky accident," Lynch said. It's been more 21 months since Rishi Nagassar, Kazim Ali Jr, Fyzal Kurban and Yusuf Henry lost their lives in nightmarish circumstances, and as Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar pointed out, $15 million later, the families of the four men have received nothing beyond the sincere empathy of Mr Lynch when he took their statements. The cost of the CoE is not, by itself, really the issue. Investigating matters of public interest thoroughly often requires a significant investment to assess the facts and offer useful conclusions. But far too many enquries, from the Scott Drug Report to the Colman report on Clico neither produced prosecutions or offered the public insight or closure. The Seemungal CoE into overcrowding of the National Stadium for the 1989 World Cup qualifying football match consumed millions before its funding quietly evaporated. Sir Anthony Colman, KC, produced a report on the collapse of HCU which was tabled in Parliament, but the report on the Clico companies was placed under seal in July 2016 and sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Government also received a forensic report on Clico from Canadian expert Bob Lindquist in 2011 that cost $105 million. Beyond a civil suit filed in June 2011 by the Central Bank and Clico against Lawrence Duprey and Andre Monteil, there has been no significant legal action regarding the Clico collapse.

In September 2022, Paria Fuel Trading recorded profits of $257 million. Despite vigorous talk about improving dive safety, it is not clear that anything has been improved for subsea workers. What happened to the four divers was a tragedy. It should not be compounded by secrecy and inaction.