The Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards (ABBS) has officially launched its fuel pump verification programme, thereby joining the ranks of some other CROSQ Member States.
In April this year, the Metrology Act came into effect and the Bureau of Standards proposed its first steps for implementation of the Act to be the establishment of a national Fuel Pump Verification Service.
At the launch of the programme a few months later, Chairman of the Antigua and Barbuda Standards Council, Mr. Cottrille George said: “This journey for developing the nation’s quality infrastructure employs metrology or measurement science as one of the main vehicles for promoting fairness and equity in trade, business excellence and consumer confidence.
“It is for this reason that we celebrated the proclamation of the Metrology Act in April this year. This Act gives credence to the Bureau’s mandate to ensure the accuracy of weighing and measuring instruments used in trade. The practice of checking, because it is mandated by law, is known as legal Metrology, and will soon become a regular consideration and /or characteristic of any form of business for which earnings or profit are derived from measurements based activities.”
The journey to this stage involved Bureau of Standards personnel working with the fuel suppliers and retailers to perform checks/tests on the fuel dispensers for accuracy to ensure that the pumps are delivering correctly the stated metered quantities. This will ensure that consumers are receiving the quantities purchased and also retailers are not losing product due to faulty dispensing.
Having done the necessary preliminary checks, all fuel dispensers that have “passed the test” will be affixed with a blue validation sticker providing the logo and name of the Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards and the expiration date of the authentication of the specific fuel dispenser nozzle.
Consumers are being educated to look for these validation stickers and verifications will be carried out hereafter, in accordance with the provisions of the Metrology Act and Regulations. Lessons learnt will be shared with regional metrologists through CROSQ’s Caribbean Metrology Network (CARIMET) and that is recognized by SIM, the Inter-American Metrology System.
