SON decries use of 12.5 kg cylinders and above as camp gases

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has conducted mass sensitisation campaigns to create awareness on the dangers associated with the use of 12.5 kg cylinders and other cylinders bigger than 12.5kg as camp gases.

The Coordinator of the organisation in Plateau, Mr Musa George in Jos on Sunday, described the practice as highly dangerous.

According to him, the approved kilogrammes of cylinders to be used as camp gas are from 1 to 7.5kgs of gas cylinders, and warned that anything above that is highly detrimental.

George said the act of mounting burners on cylinders as big as 12.5 kg was very wrong because such cylinders were not designated to be used as camp gas.

“It is a very dangerous act; people are not supposed to mount burners on 12.5 kg cylinders or cylinders bigger than 12.5kg.

“Even when such cylinders are not used as camp gas, such cylinders are meant to be kept some distance away from the gas cooker itself as precautionary measures against gas explosion in case the cylinder is leaking or faulty,” he said.

He said the organisation had, and on the need for people to desist from the act of buying and selling the materials, as the act of using them as camp gases “is highly detrimental”.

On the issue of substandard electrical cables, George revealed that the organisation had raided shops and confiscated 600 rolls of such substandard items from 2016 to date.

He decried the practice where shop owners who were selling substandard cables now devised a new method of storing such substandard cables in a hidden warehouse in order to escape being raided by the organisation’s personnel.

He also lamented that the producers of the substandard electrical cables had perfected their skills of fabricating the substandard electrical cables to look like the original electrical cables.

The state coordinator said that in the past the substandard electrical cables did not have an embossment of the name of their company on the electrical cable, but now the substandard electrical cables had embossments on them.

He said SON was working proactively to rid the market of substandard items and to ensure that items purchased by users were certified by the organisation.

He advised the public against purchasing items that did not carry the SON logo, as such materials had not been certified by SON and, were, therefore, not meant to be in the market.