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S.I. Requiring Scales Could Be Signed As Early As Tomorrow
posted (February 15, 2011)
And the Butane issue was also discussed at today's Cabinet meeting, where, according to a Cabinet brief, quote: (look down) "Cabinet was briefed on efforts to strengthen the Belize Bureau of Standards to enable it to better respond to issues of quality control and regulation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to protect the interests and rights of consumers." Considering the present consumer emergency at hand, that bureaucratese about "efforts to strengthen…and responding to issues" is hardly re-assuring and so we'll revert to the public declaration made by the Prime Minister to us on Friday: that the practice of under filling tanks is straight up "stealing" and that the Bureau of Standards is compelled to act decisively and immediately:

PM Dean Barrow
"Actually stealing, actively stealing from the consumer, the scandal of what has been exposed really is so disturbing that it would be a crime on top of a crime if nothing were to be done about it. It seems to me that the Bureau of Standards having verified the accuracy of your exercise must act with respect to the findings. but that something is to be done as a consequence of the expose is undoubted. "

Jules Vasquez
"In the immediate short term to stop the hemorrhaging that consumers are enduring every day, might it be proposed as an emergency measure to demand that these people simply install scales which can be properly set and calibrated by the Bureau?"

PM Dean Barrow
"That should be fairly easy to do and I think we should do that."

Yesterday the Director Of The Bureau of Standards Jose Trejo said that a statutory instrument would have to be drafted to require the installation of scales at butane depots and on delivery trucks. He said it could be done in a minimum of two weeks or by this Friday.

Just before newstime we were able to reach Minister of Economic Development Erwin Contreras under whose portfolio the Bureau of Standards falls.

He had good news. He said the S.I. is being drafted at this hour and he expects to sing in tomorrow. He says the S.I. will have to do with the requirement that scales be installed and he says they are also looking into matter with the Solicitor General to see what charges can be levied against the companies.

And along that line, we have an update on our consumer complaint. As we showed you yesterday Jules Vasquez filled out a consumer complaint form in which he claims that he was shorted 12.2 pounds of butane or fifteen dollars on a hundred pound cylinder from BWEL, and 6.4 pounds or eight dollars on a 50 pound cylinder also form BWEL, and 29.8 pounds equivalent to $37.55 from Gas Tomza.

Today the Bureau of Standards Complaints Officer wrote Jules ot say that, quote: "We are consulting with the Attorney General's Ministry to address your complaint submitted yesterday. I will be able to provide you with an update by tomorrow."

We'll wait and see how that goes.

And while we had a consumer complaint, BWEL has another media complaint, and, you guessed it, it's all about Channel 7. Again, they did not send us the release, but we got it anyway. It accuses Channel 7 of, quote: "not wanting to disclose who Belize Dry Cleaners was buying from and then airing that news clip right before airing our press conference, clearly insinuating that the supplier was BWEL."

Of course, no such insinuation was made. We did not disclose the name because Mr. Arnold, as a condition of his disclosure ask that we not say who the business is, because he continues to buy butane from that company.

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