ANOR to fight illegal gas cylinders in 2015

By 2015, the domestic gas sector operators, who continue to ignore the standards governing their activity in Cameroon, will face the actions of controls teams, which will be meted out on them beginning of the year.

This was announced on September 1, 2014, in Yaoundé during an information and awareness meeting between the Director-general of the Agency for standards and quality (ANOR), Charles Boto'o Ngon, and the operators of the domestic gas distribution sector.

In the course of this meeting which looked like a last warning, the ANOR officials mainly insisted on strict compliance with the legally marketed quantities, to which a reduction has become the favourite activity of several distributors of household gas driven by the desire to make gain and not compromise the technical configuration of cylinders, which would normally keep consumers from all danger.

But unfortunately in neighborhoods, in addition to complaints about the siphoning of cylinders, housewives often live on real tragedies caused by explosions of defective cylinders.

From this point of view, a report published in 2011, at the end of a control mission jointly conducted by the Directorate of metrology and the protection of the consumer by the Ministry of Commerce, and the price of hydrocarbons (HSPC) Stabilization Fund, revealed that "70% of the cylinders of household gas in circulation in the country are defective.

Since that time, only Tradex, newly arrived on the market for the distribution of gas to households, and Oilybia, have officially announced the renewal of their packaging stock, while many other distributors, including the leader of the market, the Cameroonian metal processing company (MCTS), are often indexed for use of obsolete packages, or imports of cylinders not always obeying the required safety standards.