PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Prime Minister Stuart Young Thursday brushed aside suggestions that a one million dollar (One TT dollar=US$0.16 cents) ex-gratia payment to the families of four men who died at sea while repairing a pipeline three years ago is intended to enhance the chances of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) in the April 28 general election.
“I can’t change that perception of people, and I can understand the cynicism of those who hold that point of view. I know the facts, and I was highly frustrated because I had asked for this to be done before we came into 2025…
“I can’t afford that; I cannot afford the timing, the conversations, and people entitled to have. Everybody is entitled to their view. It is not for the election, but even me saying that will bring no solace and change anybody’s mind,” Young said, adding that the payment will be a one-time ex-gratia payment and is not an admission of liability.
“I told cabinet I was no longer prepared to have these companies frustrate the families. I wish it could have been done earlier and that the companies and the insurers had taken the legal route and settled it, but that hasn’t been done,” Young told the weekly Cabinet news conference.
“The Cabinet has today confirmed what I asked them last week, collectively and unanimously, and the government of Trinidad and Tobago is going to make an ex-gratia payment, which means without any admission of liability but recognizing the difficulty, the trauma and the tragic circumstances of these divers and we are going to make ex-gratia payments of one million dollars to each of the families…”
On February 25, 2022, Land and Marine and Construction Services (LMCS) divers, namely Kazim Ali Jnr, Rishi Nagassar, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry, and Christopher Boodram, were repairing a 30-inch pipeline at the state-owned Paria Fuel Trading Company Limited’s (Paria) Pointe-a-Pierre facility when they were sucked into it.
Only Boodram managed to escape.
The report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Paria tragedy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) should consider charging the Paria with corporate manslaughter.
“There is not a strong enough case to recommend the prosecution of any individual. However, the law permits a corporation to be charged with manslaughter,” said the report, which was laid in the House of Representatives in January last year.
Prime Minister Young told reporters that the delay in payments to the families was due to the insurers for LMCS and Paria’s inability to agree on which company was liable.
Young said that, as an attorney, he had been pushing the companies “in ways I thought could manage solutions.
“It has been a very frustrating process, I am certain, for the families, and it kept driving me to have the conversation. This needs to be settled,” he said, noting that he had been told that the insurers for the two companies “are the ones who are quarreling and arguing about liability and who is at fault.
‘A situation like this, there is not yet a definitive determination of who and which company would be at fault,” he said, adding, “In law …there is more than one who could be at fault”.
He said he had been arguing with the lawyers, telling them, “In a situation like that, let us go ahead and settle the matter with the families.”
“They are the ones for whom this thing continues to be painful, and afterward, the companies could continue to fight, let the insurance companies fight for the determination of liability,” he added.
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