CHIMPREPORTS
The Uganda National Bureau of Statistics (UNBS) has launched fight to eliminate illegal gas dealers in the new Liquefied Petroleum Gases (LPG) regulations.
LPG is a mixtures of volatile hydrocarbons propene, propane, butene, and butane used as fuel gas in heating appliances, cooking equipment and vehicles among others.
Speaking on Tuesday at the virtual UNBS stakeholder engagement to ensure quality of LPG on the market, Frankline Mucunguzi, the Legal Metrologist at UNBS said that there has been an emergency of illegal LPG dealers which put the customers at risk.
“With the rising of the LPG industry profits, there has come a rising temptation for a class of non-compliant “entrepreneurs” to attempt to enter the LPG market illegally, without adhering to market rules about fair competition, respect for property rights, safety and so on,” he said.
Adding: “The emergence of this “illegal entrepreneur” class, together with its bad practices, hinders the economic viability of legitimate LPG players and challenges public safety as a result. UNBS has received several complaints from the public about short weight in LPG. This has necessitated intervention from UNBS.”
The UNBS Legal Metrology Department enforces the weights, measures and subsidiary legislations and the Prepackage Control to ensure that the labelling and quantity of the prepackaged goods conform to the Sale and Labelling of goods regulation.
“Since it is not possible to measure LPG packages in the presence of the buyer, LPG is a prepackaged good. However LPG is a special type of prepacked good where the packaging material is heavier than the gas itself,” he said.
This, he said, necessitates a unique guideline and code of practice to enable effective control.
UNBS, between February and March 2020, conducted a field survey to establish whether the LP gas retail outlets were complying to the requirements.
33 LP gas retail outlets in selected areas were found not compliant.
“Out of 556 Gas cylinders that were analyzed, 195 gas cylinders failed, this translates to failure rate of 35.07%, concerning labeling, most of the gas cylinders did not have the product name and addresses of dealers were missing on the gas cylinders and in many cases, there was no distinction made in indication of Tare Weight, Gross Weight and Net Weight,” Mucunguzi said.
“There was use of unsafe containers yet LPG containers when constructed to established codes are durable and have a long useful life. The use of unsafe containers results in unfair competition, a serious risk to the public,” he added.
“One of the more destructive practices in the LPG industry is the illegal filling (pirate filling) of cylinders by someone other than the cylinder owner.”
Proposed Regulations
In the proposed regulations, all suppliers, packers, distributors and dealers in LP gas and LP gas cylinders will be required to register with UNBS.
“Tare weight, Net weight and gross weight in SI UNITS will be marked or painted conspicuously. All new cylinders complete with valve, shroud and foot ring should be submitted to UNBS and examined for compliance and old ones re-examined every five years in order to determine fitness of purpose and confirmation of Declared Tare weight,” Mucunguzi highlighted.
Other regulations include; Spot Inspection and testing of cylinders at premises be conducted by UNBS, all dealers including retailers who sell gas in cylinders maintain a digital weighing scale of accuracy class III verified by UNBS and all filled LPG cylinders should bear a respective fillers seal whose sample has been submitted to UNBS.
Speaking at the engagement, Eng. John Paul Musimami, the Deputy ED of UNBS in charge of Compliance urged stakeholders to embrace the initiative.
“We want the public to have value for the money of the products they consume and that’s why you are seeing these regulations. Remember consumer confidence is all that we all want and that’s why we must ensure that people get exactly what they deserve,” he said.
source https://perilofafrica.com/2021/11/unbs-targets-illegal-gas-dealers-in-proposed-lpg-regulations.html