UNC’s David Lee calls for interim Paria board to negotiate compensation

THE OPPOSITION is asking for the installation of an interim board of directors for Paria Fuel Trading Company to formulate a policy to compensate the families of the four divers involved in a fatal accident at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre facility on February 25, 2022.

Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee made the call on Sunday .

Lee said the current board cannot be involved in the process. He also called for a sub-committee of the Cabinet to formulate a policy to compensate the families or hold negotiations with the families’ lawyers.

“It cannot be business as usual,” Lee said. “This same board cannot deliberate on compensation for the families.”

Lee quoted from the report by the Commission of Enquiry into the Paria tragedy.

“Families have had their loved ones and breadwinners snatched away from them. Real consideration needs to be given to assist these families in the aftermath of the incident, to help them with the financial burden… This does not have to involve an admission of liability,” he said.

Lee said it was not the Opposition making these recommendations, but the commission, led by King’s Counsel Jerome Lynch, who submitted the report to the President on November 30, 2023.

He also referred to the Prime Minister’s statements in Parliament on Friday, in response to questions from the Opposition.

Dr Rowley said the Government was not in a position to override Paria’s role, nor could it direct the board to make any financial payments to the families.

Rowley said, “This is not a matter for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to jump in.

“This is a matter where a state company had an accident in a situation where a contract was being executed by a private company. These are the facts.
"So the Government cannot just jump in and decide to pay compensation willy-nilly all over the place. We have to follow processes.”

Rowley said Paria is  reviewing the contents report.  Energy Minister Stuart Young laid the report in the House on January 19.

“This matter remains mainly a legal matter of liabilities and responsibilities.”

He reiterated, “It would be quite unusual at this stage for the Government to override the responsibilities or role of the board (of Paria) and other entities involved.”

However, Lee accused Dr Rowley and the government of “shutting its doors” in the faces of the families “who have been living a nightmare for the last two years.”

“On Friday, we witnessed a prime minister essentially using our Parliament to reject the pain suffering and hardship of four families whose loved ones perished by doing work for the State.”

Also on Sunday at the UNC’s media briefing, Lee referred to reports that the construction of the proposed solar farm at Orange Grove will no longer proceed as planned.

The solar farm project was announced in April 2023. It was expected to be TT’s first grid-scale renewable energy project. At the sod-turning ceremony, it was announced that the project, when completed, would generate 112MW of renewable energy across two sites (Brechin Castle and Orange Grove), making it the largest project of its kind in the Caribbean.

The project is being constructed by a consortium made up of bp Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago (bpATT) and Shell Renewables Caribbean (Shell). Lightsource bp is the construction manager for the project.

A newspaper report on Sunday quoted bpTT president David Campbell confirming the project would not go ahead as planned, while Energy Minister Stuart Young was quoted as confirming that situation plans were in place to see if the Brechin Castle Park could be expanded.

“The Cabinet has taken a deci­sion to utilise the land that was previously earmarked for the solar project at Orange Grove for a different project,” Young said, while not giving details on the new plans for the Orange Grove location.

Campbell, meanwhile, said bpTT would look at how to reco­ver funds already spent on the project.

Lee further called for quarterly reports to the Parliament on the Dragon Gas deal between TT and Venezuela.

He referred to the latest condemnation by the US government and several other world leaders of the decision of Venezuela’s highest court to block the presidential candidacy of opposition leader María Corina Machado.

A report from the Associated Press said the Biden administration, however, remained noncommittal about reimposing economic sanctions on Venezuela, which it has threatened to do if the government of President Nicolás Maduro failed to ensure a level playing field for the country’s presidential election this year.

“The US is currently reviewing our Venezuela sanctions policy, based on this development and the recent political targeting of democratic opposition candidates and civil society,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Machado won a presidential primary held in October by the faction of the opposition backed by the US She secured more than 90 per cent of the vote despite the Venezuelan government's announcing a 15-year ban on her running for office just days after she formally entered the race in June.

Machado insisted throughout the campaign that she never received official notification of the ban and said voters, not ruling-party loyalists, were the rightful decision-makers of her candidacy.

Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice on Friday upheld the ban, which was based on alleged fraud and tax violations, and accuses Machado of seeking the economic sanctions the US imposed on Venezuela.

The ruling came more than three months after Maduro and the US-backed opposition reached a deal to work on basic conditions for a fair election. The two sides agreed to hold the election in the second half of 2024, invite international electoral observers, and create a process for aspiring presidential candidates to appeal their bans.

The deal led Washington to ease some economic sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, gas and mining sectors.

Miller said Friday’s decision from Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice “runs contrary to the commitments made by Maduro and his representatives” under the agreement signed in October in Barbados. In a statement on Saturday, the international nongovernmental organisation Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas said Machado “continues to be the legitimate representative of the Venezuelan opposition and its presidential candidate before the international community.”

The statement was signed by roughly 30 world leaders of Spain and Latin America, including former presidents Iván Duque of Colombia, Mauricio Macri of Argentina, and Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón of Mexico.

The leaders wrote that the action of Maduro’s governmen,t through Venezuela’s highest court, “whose direction has recently been entrusted to a member of the official party...proves his repeated contempt for the essential elements and fundamental components of democracy.”