ATTORNEY Nyree Alfonso called for the introduction of mandatory safety standards for TT's commercial diving sector, on Wednesday at the Paria Commission of Enquiry (CoE), at the International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain.
The CoE, under Jerome Lynch, KC, is probing last February's tragic deaths of four men sucked into an pipeline undersea belonging to Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd at Pointe-a-Pierre, during which a fifth diver, Christopher Boodram, escaped.
Alfonso faulted Paria and LMCS for the tragic turn of events, plus a lack of compulsory standards for commercial divers, rather than the current voluntary ones.
She advocated safe working environments, conditions and systems, as counsel for the SWWTU – affiliated to the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and International Trade Union Conference (ITUC) – saying the International Labour Organisation (ILO) also wanted stricter standards in TT.
Recalling a Bureau of Standards witness statement that TT's commercial diving sector had only voluntary/optional standards, Alfonso urged "a mandatory framework" of standards which she said the authorities had not introduced despite TT being a mature oil province involving thousands of employees.
Alfonso explained the framework envisaged by the SWWTU.
"This would include prescribing minimum certification for persons undertaking commercial diving work, audit and certification of schools proving instructions to such persons, (and) inspections and audit of diving equipment.
"We would expect that the said regulatory framework would include robust powers of oversight, enforcement and prosecution of employers who depart from what would now be a mandatory regulatory framework."
She said if such standards had existed, the tragedy might not have occurred, or alternatively the divers could have been rescued after the Delta P event.
Alfonso said LMCS's proposal to do repairs using men equipped with scuba equipment had been clearly outlined in its tender and been accepted by Paria.
She said LMCS had broken no regulatory provisions by using scuba equipment to enter the habitat as no regulatory provisions required the use of commercial diving equipment involving surface-supplied air to divers who were harnessed and tendered from the surface.
"LMCS's diving supervisor admitted that, had the divers, at minimum, been harnessed by rope which could have been attached to their respective hips, then when the Delta P event occurred they could have been retrieved immediately," Alfonso said.
"And we would not be here today. And the family members from whom we have heard would not have experienced the heart-wrenching hurt that must have been attendant not only with the accident but with the management of same after the fact."
Still addressing LMCS's actions, she said the company's work plans did not involve its dive supervisor being geared up (ahead of the accident), LMCS had not provided a hyperbaric (decompression) to Christopher
