Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd’s Terminal Operations Manager Colin Piper said Paria did not possess the competency needed to review the scope of works presented to them by LMCS for the job being done at Paria’s Berth 6 at Pointe-a-Pierre.

Piper was giving eagerly anticipated testimony on Wednesday during the Commission of Enquiry into the February 25 tragedy, held at the International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain, chaired by Jerome Lynch, KC.

Responding to questions from CoE counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, he said the risk assessments and emergency response plans (ERPs) presented by LMCS were to include all credible scenarios.

“LMCS should have identified all credible risks and planned ERPs and mitigation strategies. As Paria were not experts in these types of jobs, we would look for obvious operational risks but wouldn’t be able to identify specialised risks. Paria is not the expert, but we hired a company we thought had the expertise. We did not hire an expert to review the contract as this contractor had successfully completed similar works and came with a wealth of experience.”

He said while he was on the tenders committee that approved the contract, he did not review the tenders, as this was the province of the technical and maintenance department. He said the assessments and plans would not have been presented to the committee.

Maharaj said the permit to work for the job listed a Kenson employee as the applicant for the job, while LMCS was listed separately as the contractor, and Piper as the site authority. Maharaj noted that the job description for the applicant indicated that they should have the competency to carry out the works being executed. Piper said the Kenson employee was supervising the job and did not have the competency to carry it out.

Lynch said Piper had previously explained that in some cases the applicant is the contractor as it makes sense in those cases. He asked Piper if he could conceive of a situation more important than this one where the contractor should have been the applicant.

Piper replied, “I would say yes sir, the contractor should have been the applicant.”

Lynch said, “Even though it isn’t said anywhere, you told us it is a practice adopted by Paria from time to time that the applicant in the work permit form could and should be the contractor himself. Given your reliance on the contractor for his expertise in this case, he should have been the applicant, that’s what you’re saying? If you were doing this over, starting today, and you had this work permit in front of you, who would you make the applicant?”

Piper replied, “I would make the contractor the applicant, I would say it should have been the contractor.”

Piper also said he made the decision to pause any attempts to rescue the divers at 6.25 pm on February 25 after being told that a diver had tried to enter the pipeline.

“I told Mr Harichan we don't know the conditions in the pipeline. Clearly at that time we didn't know what had caused the accident, we didn’t know at that time what the condi