Paria diving tragedy survivor, 2 divers’ families get $1M ex-gratia payout

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

The lone sur­vivor of the 2022 Paria div­ing tragedy, Christo­pher Boodram, has ex­pressed grat­i­tude not on­ly for the ex-gra­tia pay­ment made by the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day, but al­so for the sup­port ex­tend­ed to his fam­i­ly and the fam­i­lies of the oth­er divers through­out the or­deal.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Boodram said he was in­formed yes­ter­day morn­ing to col­lect the cheque.

When asked how he in­tend­ed to use the mon­ey, the com­mer­cial div­er laughed and de­clined to com­ment.

“This is like a breath of fresh air. I am hap­py that it hap­pened. It is most need­ed, as some peo­ple who fol­lowed this would know I was not able to prac­tise my craft since. I am grate­ful for the na­tion and the sup­port they gave from the mo­ment it hap­pened, through the up­roar, to bring it to this point,” he said.

Boodram ac­knowl­edged that pub­li­cis­ing the pay­ment posed a se­cu­ri­ty risk but un­der­stood that, as a ma­jor pub­lic in­ci­dent, the pay­ments need­ed to be made known.

Tak­ing to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter the pay­ments were is­sued, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the move was long over­due.

“For far too long, the suf­fer­ing and strug­gles of the sur­vivor and the be­reaved fam­i­lies were ig­nored by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, which chose in­stead to ex­pend pub­lic funds on le­gal fees rather than of­fer­ing di­rect as­sis­tance, com­pas­sion, and care to those left be­hind,” she said.

Boodram, along with Rishi Na­gas­sar, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Fyzal Kur­ban, and Yusuf Hen­ry—em­ploy­ees of Land and Ma­rine Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Ltd (LM­CS)—were sucked in­to a 30-inch un­der­wa­ter pipeline fol­low­ing a dif­fer­en­tial pres­sure (Delta P) event while per­form­ing main­te­nance at Berth No. 6 in the Pointe-a-Pierre Har­bour on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022.

Dur­ing a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry led by Jerome Lynch, KC, it was rec­om­mend­ed that Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed be charged with cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter. The com­pa­ny main­tained it was un­aware the divers were in­side the pipe be­tween 2.45 pm and 5.30 pm and on­ly be­came aware when Boodram emerged.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was com­mit­ted to “ac­count­abil­i­ty, hu­man­i­ty, and the prin­ci­ple that no cit­i­zen is left be­hind.”

While Boodram and the rel­a­tives of Na­gas­sar and Kur­ban have re­ceived pay­ments, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said pay­ments for the re­main­ing fam­i­lies will be made in due course.

“I em­pha­sised that no amount of mon­ey can ever re­place a lost loved one. How­ev­er, these pay­ments are in­tend­ed to pro­vide mean­ing­ful sup­port and re­lief and to help ease the lives of the af­fect­ed fam­i­lies and their de­scen­dants,” she said.

Speak­ing at the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said pay­ments to the re­main­ing fam­i­lies would fol­low the res­o­lu­tion of on­go­ing le­gal mat­ters.

“For us, it is not just one promise made and one promise kept, but it is con­tribut­ing to the fam­i­lies. Any­one with com­pas­sion, a heart, em­pa­thy, would un­der­stand that these fam­i­lies have ex­pe­ri­enced ter­ri­ble tragedies. In the af­ter­math, they had been aban­doned by the state un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion and there­fore need­ed this type of re­lief and sup­port—for them­selves and, in most cas­es, their young chil­dren. That was done to­day, and we will con­tin­ue to pro­vide sup­port as the process un­folds,” Mooni­lal said.

He added that there was no le­gal im­ped­i­ment pre­vent­ing the state from mak­ing pay­ments to fam­i­lies who have al­ready re­ceived them. How­ev­er, is­sues in­volv­ing in­sur­ance claims for the rel­a­tives of Ali and Hen­ry are still on­go­ing with Paria, and pay­ments will be made once those mat­ters are set­tled.

The Gov­ern­ment is al­so mon­i­tor­ing an­oth­er court mat­ter re­lat­ed to the in­ci­dent, in­volv­ing charges un­der the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act against Paria, two of its of­fi­cials, LM­CS, and its di­rec­tor Kaz­im Ali Snr. The charges may be in lim­bo af­ter the Privy Coun­cil ruled that they were laid out­side the lim­i­ta­tion pe­ri­od.