Family members of 34-year-old construction worker Asraf Hoosaney who fell to his death while working on a bond at La Bonne Intention on Tuesday are blaming an exposed wire for his demise.
According to his son Avinash, who was also working on the Tony’s Auto Spares bond, the wire has been exposed for a while. “GPL join the wire and leff it jus suh. They didn’t tape it up or anything. GPL is the cause of this problem,” the young man said.
Other family members also echoed similar sentiments. “GPL had the problem, it wasn’t anything to do with Tony’s,” one family member said.
However, Asraf’s father Ibrahim Hoosaney questioned why his employers would have sent him to the worksite knowing that there was an exposed wire. “They know the wire was there years. Why they didn’t tell he to be careful?” the man questioned.
When this newspaper visited the bond yesterday, no work was being carried out and the gate was padlocked.
Asraf’s family also said that his employers had visited moments earlier and would be covering the funeral costs.
Meanwhile, his son said that they had only started working on the bond last week. “Is only yesterday [Tuesday] we turned out back. We were closing off the shed,” he said. The young man also told this newspaper that no protective gear was provided to them. He further said that numerous complaints were made about the wire but nothing was done about it.
Asraf’s wife Dhanpattie Beepat said he had been working with the company for a number of years. She also said that a post-mortem examination is expected to be conducted on Friday.
It was only in June that a similar work place accident had occurred. A construction worker was electrocuted while working on a building in Robb Street. According to reports, Carl Clarkson, 42, called ‘Boy Blue’ of Lot 37 Bel Air Village, East Coast Demerara was flung from the second storey of the concrete structure, located next door to Salt and Pepper, after a steel rod he was carrying came into contact with electrical wires. It was said that the rod was being handed to him from workers on the floor below.
