War has been declared on the import of unsafe paraffin stoves with a joint operation by the South African Police Service and National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) uncovering four informal and two formal shops selling illegal stoves. Forty-four illegal stoves were confiscated and six arrests made.
The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) has taken a strong stand on the issue and yesterday distributed 3000 safe and approved paraffin stoves at the Vusimuzi informal settlement in Tembisa. It’s part of a multi-departmental ‘Safer Stoves Campaign’ undertaken by the dti, Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the NRCS, the National Consumer Commission (NCC) and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.
Speaking at the hand-over, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies, said that the import and sale of deadly non-compliant paraffin stoves was prohibited in South Africa.
According to Davies nine houses out of ten make use of the illegal stoves because they are sold more cheaply than the safe compliant ones that are approved by the NRCS.
“We went through the docks in Durban and we discovered these stoves being shipped in. We confiscated and destroyed them, but the perpetrators involved in this trade have resorted to importing these stoves in bits and pieces and setting up illegal factories to assemble and distribute them locally,” added Davies.
The campaign found that 3 000 households in Tembisa were using stoves that were not safe. These were confiscated and replaced with safe stoves.
