The Standards Organisation of Nigeria has said that it would pursue the requalification exercise for Liquefied Petroleum Gas cylinders in the country
The Director General, SON, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, disclosedis in Lagos that it has become imperative to tackle the menace associated with the LPG cylinders, a statement from the agency on Friday indicated.
According to him, aside enhancing safety of lives and property in the industry, revalidation of cylinders would also boost the LPG business as well as create more confidence in the minds of users on safety.
Odumodu noted that part of SON statutory mandate is to protect lives and property through standards.
He said the requalification exercise would also eliminate most of the sub-standard cylinders from circulation and also lead to the scrapping of old cylinders.
He said, "We have be meeting with key sectors of the economy and the operators in the LPG sector especially for industrial safety by ensuring that imported LPG cylinders and those produced in Nigeria meet the requirements of NIS 69: 2006," while seeking all the collaboration of the stakeholders' to ensure quality gas is also dispense to the consumers.
According to him, a current situation whereby cylinders were imported or produced in Nigeria and sold to users without any programme for requalification and none for maintenance is no longer acceptable.
He said that SON would soon flag up a campaign to remove old cylinder from circulation
"Cylinders above 15 years, which is the agreed period for their revalidation, would be affected," the SON added.
He said that all the stakeholders need to join hands with the SON to start doing something to safeguard the sector.
According to him, some of the things SON would be seeking to do, going forward, are to ensure that all importers of LPG cylinders have a defined programme for the maintenance of cylinders.
In addition he said operator would have trained personnel on how to inspect and re-qualify LPG cylinders.
Other prequalification condition are the expiry dates of cylinders shall be engraved or embossed on all cylinders, adding that there was need to start setting the right standards in the sector.
According to him, a Technical Committee comprising members from all sectors should had met to develop a framework for the workability of the scheme.
The SON Chief noted that the exercise was a core of the organisation campaign of zero tolerance to substandard products in the country.
