Attorney Prakash Ramadhar has written to the prime minister calling for the $1 million ex-gratia payments to families of the deceased divers and the lone surviving diver from the Paria tragedy, to be made by April 14.
On February 25, 2022, Christopher Boodram together with co-workers Kazim Ali Jr, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry and Rishi Nagassar, were repairing a 30-inch pipeline at Paria's Pointe-a-Pierre facility when they were sucked into it. Only Boodram survived.
Ramadhar, who represents the Kurban and Henry families, said he wrote to the PM on April 8 on behalf of his clients. He was speaking to reporters at his office in Curepe.
“We have received instructions that we want that $1 million promise materialised into a cheque. We are asking that this government, because the PM himself has spoken, cause to be delivered to Mrs Kurban and to Aliyah’s mom, a cheque for $1 million in one week’s time.
“We have heard in the past, many promises that have never materialised. We don’t believe that without prodding, this cheque will be forthcoming. We do not know what will happen on election day and I don’t want this matter to go into the background in the melee of campaigning and this matter is not resolved at least in terms of this payment.”
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Ramadhar said letters have been sent (to Govt) by his firm in conjunction with Assembly of Southern Lawyers president Saira Lakhan and her law firm Magnus. While the letter on behalf of Kurban asks for the cheque to be delivered by April 14, the one sent on behalf of Henry says:
“We have noted your offer to pay $1 million as an ex-gratia payment in relation to the horrific tragedy at Paria some three years ago. We are instructed by our client to accept your offer for a $1 million payment whilst preserving her legal rights to pursue any matter before the High Court before the courts of TT for any and all other remedies available to her.”
Ramadhar said while he considers the payment “too little, too late, it means the world when one is starving or thirsty. The slightest drop of water, the smallest drop of food, means all to us, so I’m very grateful.”
He said none of the lawyers working with him had committed to take any part of the settlement or any other to come and were working pro-bono (free of charge).
When PM Stuart Young made the announcement on April 3 at a post-Cabinet media conference at Whitehall, he said the payment would need to be conducted by the Finance Ministry to cover what needed to be covered. He said he could not give an exact date for payment.
Ramadhar called on Finance Minister Vishnu Dhanpaul to respect his boss and get the matter completed as soon as possible.
“The prime minister is literally, amongst equals there is none, and if he says something, and the finance minister doesn’t appreciate the need to follow through on the instruction of the highest office, then something is terribly wrong,” Ramadhar said.
He asked Celisha Kurban to share the experiences of her daughter who was struggling to complete her mechanical engineering degree in Canada.
“Before her father died, she went to the University of Calgary to pursue her passion to be a mechanical engineer. Every single semester, since her father’s passing, the family has been traumatised because they did not have funds to pay the child’s tuition and living expenses. They have had to go from pillar to post, borrowing to ensure their daughter concludes her education.”
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Kurban said her daughter had faced great difficulties while trying to complete her degree.
“She had to work three jobs, while going to school and studying. At one point she was tutoring a child, she was working at a restaurant as a cashier, and cleaning a store in the mall on evenings just to make ends meet.
"She didn’t have to do that when her dad was alive, because he had a pretty good job and was paying her fees and rent and food and whatever. Since then, we’ve been fighting up. While we’ve had a lot of help, we’ve had to sell a lot of assets from the house to make ends meet. It has been very challenging for me.
She said her daughter’s tuition costs $190,000 per semester and she had one year out of three semesters left in her programme.
“If she doesn’t pay for this semester soon, she wouldn’t be able to graduate. There have been many sleepless nights, she’s had to face a lot of challenges. It would be a dream come true for her to finish this degree. She said she wanted to follow in the legacy of her dad,” Kurban said.
Kurban added that while people are saying she would be “getting through” with the payment, her daughter’s tuition alone would take up approximately $600,000 and she also has other debts to pay.
She said the payment was long overdue as the family had been struggling for the last three years and thanked the PM for the gesture.
