ATTORNEY Prakash Ramadhar said the government had missed his deadline to pay the $1 million it had promised for each of the five victims of the Paria diving tragedy.
In a video sent to media houses on April 15, Ramadhar said he sent a letter to Prime Minister Stuart Young a week ago but had only gotten a reply acknowledging receipt of his letter.
On April 8 at a press conference, Ramadhar called on the government to pay the $1 million promised to the divers' families and the lone survivor Christopher Boodram by April 14.
On April 3 at a post-Cabinet briefing, Young said the government would make ex gratia ("out of grace" or voluntary) payments but did not give a date. Young blamed the delay on Paria and LMCS making any payments on alleged wrangling between attorneys representing each company's insurers – Paria and LMCS.
On February 25, 2022, LMCS divers Kazim Ali Jr, Rishi Nagassar, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry and Christopher Boodram were repairing a 30-inch pipeline at Paria’s Pointe-a-Pierre facility when they were sucked into it, by an unforeseen sudden change in pressure known as a "delta p" event.
Only Boodram escaped and the tragedy was subject of a multi-million dollar commission of enquiry, whose chairman Jerome Lynch KC strongly lamented the State's failure to make any interim, no-fault compensation payment to the victims' families and Boodram.
Mulling Young's role in the April 28 general elections, Ramadhar said, "Maybe he is too caught up in the politicking to consider that the promise should have been met.
"I look forward to the PM finding conscience to dealing with this matter. And if not, certainly the next government on April 28 will do what is right and proper for those family members who continue to suffer the infamy of what has happened, the pain and grief, and a promise by a prime minister not yet met."
