PREDICTIONS

I am very upset with what are clearly the most unnecessary deaths of the five divers and by the State owned company's response in dealing with the whole mess. However, there isn't a damned thing that I personally can do about the criminal negligence that is so clear to all but the most stupid except to point out that a whole set of questions on this sad episode have never been answered. So, I make the following predictions and dare those in charge to prove me wrong:

1) Nobody will be blamed for the disaster; no names will be called (except for the politically unconnected;

2) Nobody will face the Courts for this disaster;

3) Nobody will ever be required to pay anybody any compensation whatsoever (other than possibly Paria) out of their own pockets. In other words, any compensation ultimately will be footed by the taxpayers of this country;

4) We will never get a full and complete report from any of the myriad investigations that have been announced. In other words, the reports will be 'cover-ups' and will not name the persons responsible, i.e., who screwed up;

5) We will never get the names of the persons who slavishly followed "company protocols" and prevented rescuers from going in the water;

6) We will never know the name of the coast guard officer who ordered his men to train their guns on family members who wanted to go in the water to try and save the stricken men;

7) We will never get a complete and proper explanation as to why exactly it took more than 24 hours for Mr. Newman George, the chairman of Paria, to get from Tobago to Trinidad, nor will we ever know why the politicians in charge did not turn up immediately, nor will we ever know where the other directors were and why they didn't turn up;

8) This whole matter will be allowed to quietly fade away and nobody except for the stricken families of the victims will remember or feel any pain;

9) No politician, company director or other official - except perhaps for the politically unconnected - will be called upon to resign;

10) The "investigations" will take weeks to finish although finding the facts should only take a few days at the most. But the "investigators" will drag it out, possibly because they are being paid and the longer it takes the more money they will make;

11) The "investigations" will seek to cast some blame on the victims themselves;

12) We will never know why the coast guard divers arrived without their diving equipment or why they couldn't use someone else's;

Those are my predictions Let's see if I am right in any of them. Wouldn't it be great if all of them were wrong?