State Minister of Consumer Affairs Lasantha Alagiyawanna says that a 100% guarantee regarding gas can not be given to the consumers yet.
He points out that even after resolving the current crisis, the government has decided to continue the ongoing monitoring, legislation, laboratory tests, changes in the process, etc. until the consumer is 100% safe.
He said that after receiving the final report of the Presidential Committee on Gas in the next few days, steps will be taken to enact new laws and amend existing laws pertaining to the gas process.
Although the committee’s final report has not yet been released, he said changes in gas composition and pressure have contributed to the crisis.
In addition, the Minister of State stressed that the gas cylinders have become obsolete and a number of problems have arisen in the gas production process and lawsuits have been filed against both gas companies.
“As we understand it, if there are test reports saying that this happened because of this and not because of this, we will correct it in the future. But my personal conclusion is that we must especially acknowledge that this problem arose due to changes in the composition of the gases. So-called bad gas are in line with the standards set by the Standards Institution of our country for domestic gas today. Here is the first question. The standards prepared by the Standards Institution of our country do not mention anything about the composition of this. But the problem of standards lies in the pressure. There is about 1100 bar of pressure. Then this propane-butane composition, even if the propane is 100%, that pressure created does not exceed 1100. Now we have sent 12 samples to the Petroleum Corporation. Twelve of them have a composition of 47-48 propane. I have no problem in tabling those reports in Parliament. Also, 10 samples were sent to the Standards Institution. This institution says that this is in line with the standard pressure. So that means this is a technical issue.
When we looked at the production process of these two gas companies, I, our officials, the Chairman of the Consumer Affairs Authority and other officials of the Standards Institution and the Secretary of State for our Ministry personally went and observed. I think there are a number of actions that need to be taken more than the current consumer appeal, especially regarding this manufacturing process and about the maintenance of the cylinders. In a way, the ownership of this cylinder belongs to the companies. We have been using those cylinders since the nineties. There are also cylinders released in 1998. Then there is clearly no numbering on these cylinders. It was very clear to us that there are a huge number of issues in the manufacturing process of government agencies as well as these companies. Although the final report has not yet arrived, we took several decisions to resolve this situation. The Consumer Affairs Authority, the Standards Institution and the ITI will go onboard and take samples and allow them to enter the country only if there is propane composition matching to 30/32/20.” said the State Minister.
