TWO months after the five men were sucked into a 30-inch thick pipeline at Paria Fuel Trading Ltd's Berth 6 and the death of four of them, the commissioners for the commission of enquiry (CoE) have been appointed and its work has begun.
Responding to questions from the media at the Jade Room, Hyatt Regency Hotel on Friday, chair of the CoE, former head of Jamaica's Appeal Court, Justice Cecil Dennis Morrison, QC, said there were a number of steps that would be taken before public hearings began.
He said the first order of business after collecting all the evidence, would be to convene a procedural hearing. That hearing will not be the actual hearing of evidence but used to assess the value of all the material gathered to determine which will be useful in the CoE.
To give a date for the public hearing of evidence will be irresponsible of him, Morrison said. He added, though, that the procedural hearing will begin in August.
Morrison and local subsea specialist Gregory Wilson were given their instruments of appointment on Friday. Their terms of reference have 13 guiding points with the end result being them making observations, findings and recommendations into whether there was any breach of duty or criminal liability, what should be the appropriate practices going forward, what policies should be implemented and any other recommendations deemed necessary.
The commissioners have six months to submit their findings from the start of the public hearings.
The CoE was established to probe the circumstances that led to the deaths of Kazim Ali Jr, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry and Rishi Nagassar after they were trapped in the pipeline on February 25. Their bodies were recovered on February 28 and were reported to have drowned according to their autopsies.
Only Christopher Boodram survived.
At the time, the men were doing routine maintenance and were employees of LCMS Ltd.
On Friday the commissioners said, as far as they knew, this was the first of its kind in the region and world so there was no precedent for them to be guided by.
Asked if this placed any added pressure on them, Morrison joked that the stress began when they were appointed.
'Obviously we take this very seriously it's something that has its own inherent stresses and we take it seriously and that's all there is.'
Attorney for the commission Lawrence Maharaj SC, sought to ease the concerns of those who believed the commissioners, because they were paid by the government, would somehow side with Paria, a government entity.
Maharaj said Morrison was an appeal court judge in his home country and several other Caribbean countries and asked why anyone would think him anything but impartial.
'I wish to assure you as counsel for the CoE, I wish to assure Trinidad and Tobago, I will do everything within my power to get all the relevant evidence to be presented to the CoE. I will discharge those duties independently and impartially and in fairness.'
The commission has the power to compel witness testimony and documents Maharaj sai
