A case has been brought against Cevon’s Waste Management Services for not reporting the death of Clive Chisholm, whose head was crushed under a company truck at the Haggs Bosch dump at Eccles, East Bank Demerara last December.
This is according to Chief Labour, Occupational Safety and Health Officer Yoganand Persaud. He told Stabroek News that the case before the court is for the company’s failure to report the December 15, 2011 incident as the employer of the now dead man.
Persaud added that they only knew of the incident after it was blasted in the media and when the wife of Chisholm came into the ministry to request assistance for compensation from the company. If convicted, Cevon’s Waste Management Services will have to pay a fine, said Persaud, who added that if the company wants to offer compensation to Chisholm’s family he will be more than happy to assist in resolving the issue.
Chisholm’s wife, Rajnee Annie Beephan, told Stabroek News that the company is yet to offer any sort of assistance/compensation to the family. More than a month has passed and she said that her children are bearing the brunt of losing their father because the little that she works for can hardly maintain the family.
“I am a cleaner at the hospital and we does get pay every month and that can’t maintain we, because is 10 children I got,” the frustrated woman said.
Chisholm, 42, was a part-time worker with Cevon’s. “When he dead and me go to Cevon, he turn and tell me that he can’t do nutten or give me anything because me husband was a part-time worker and only give me $16,000 and tell me that is he salary before he dead,” she said.
Beephan added that all she is looking for is justice and some sort of assistance from Cevon’s, since her husband died on the job. She said that she should be assisted because he has been working part-time with the service for a number of years. She added that she wants Cevon’s to provide a house so that she can live with her family since her husband was working towards that and she also wants some financial security for her children. To date, she is yet to receive any information from the company or the relevant authority and is hoping that now that she has spoken the authorities can heed her complaint and do something about it.
Beephan, who said that some newspapers are carrying wrong information of what transpired on the day of the accident, related that she was told Chisholm came off the truck to urinate and it reversed, crushing him under the wheels.
According to her, she was at home and received a call from an unknown caller, who told her to go to the hospital because her husband was in an accident.
“When I reach at public hospital them say that he nah come there, then my daughter call me and said go to Diamond Hospital,” she said, adding that while in the taxi her daughter called again and told her Chisholm had died “and the police and hearse deh there with the bossman.”
