Bureau of Standards on countrywide inspections

In efforts to ascertain that consumers receive quality and fair services, the Belize Bureau of Standards is carrying out countrywide inspections. And with the Christmas season upon us, the B.B.S. is focusing on fuel. The process takes place every three months to ensure that consumers get what they are paying for and that service providers have not tampered with or altered prices. According to Inspection Officer, Luis Cho, the inspection is simply to guarantee that the consumers benefit.

Luis Cho, Technical Assistant, Belize Bureau of Standards
“Basically what I do is I pump out five gallons from the gasoline hand pump into the sarafin which is used to measure the five gallons. What I do, I punch five gallons on the screen and that’s supposed to be the reading that I would check on the sarafin itself. And based on that, I will determine whether the person at the gas station is giving the correct amount or giving more or less. It’s just a verification.”

Duane Moody
“Have you over the years found that there has been discrepancy?”

Luis Cho
“Yes, we do.”

Duane Moody
“And what is done is in the case of that event?”

Luis Cho
“In the case where the pump is found to be, what we call under registering or giving less—the consumer is not getting what he or she is paying for. In that case, what we do we inform the person in charge at the gas station and I will take an additional step which is to lock the pump itself. These are the seals that are used to lock off any pumps that are not working properly. These seals also are sued to seal off the meters which is used to adjust the pump that is whether to give more or less. The purpose of this is to safeguard the pump attendant and also the person in charge of the gas station. A sticker now, we will put it on the pumps like these ones. If this pump is working, this is for consumers now for them to see that yes, this pump has been checked. So in order for them to see that this pump has been checked, a sticker will be placed somewhere around here for this particular product—for each product.”

Cho told News Five that while he was there checking fuel pumps, other inspectors were at various shops checking whether food products on shelves had the weight indicated on their respective packages.

Luis Cho
“When I’m finished with Belize City with the Gas pumps, I’ll be doing the stores. I’ll be checking stores for scales, the same thing applies to check to see that the person that are buying the pound of sugar, rice; what ever the case may be … it’s to determine if the scale is working properly. We have stores that have packaged items that are weighed already and it’s placed on the shelves. So what the consumers do, they go and just pick up an item on the shelf and they pay for it. But they don’t check it to see whether that item has the correct weight. What I do is, I do a check on that as well to determine that the actual weight of what’s placed on the bag is what is in the bag.”