7 News Belize

Butane Update: Where Are The Scales
posted (April 19, 2011)
If you go and buy butane right now, there's a 99% chance that you won't be sold by the pound; in fact, chances are, you won't even see a scale on the premises!

So, then, was all that talk about scales and new regulations just a whole lot of hot air?

Well it wasn't, and even though the deadline and the extension of implementation have long passed, now we are being told, these things take time.

According to the spokesperson for the Belize Bureau Of Standards, only two scales have been verifies so far countrywide. We have learned that those scales are for two companies that sell only BNE butane.

But, all the other importing companies, still don't have their scales in the country yet. According to the bureau it is in possession of the invoices showing the shipping dates. All the scales have to be imported because none of the ones sold in Belize met the required standard. The Bureau has received 16 applications but does not expect that it will be finished with the verifications of those scales until the end of May. "Verification" means affixing the scales with the bureau of standards stickers - a time consuming process - because there are only two personnel to do it - and in some cases they will have to check 30 scales at one butane dealer.

Of course, - and this is an editorial comment - a plausible reason that it's taking so long to get the scales imported is because the companies don't want to do it, simply because scales are bad for businesses, especially when those businesses are built on skimming, or what one company calls "inventory efficiency."

The new regulations for scale were signed into law in February.

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