The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has intensified its campaign against the proliferation of substandard imported steel pipes in the country by conducting market monitoring operations to safeguard the welfare of consumers and safety of the public.
The DTI’s market monitoring teams in Davao reported that at least seven hardware stores in Davao City were already found selling steel pipes that do not conform with the specifications required in Philippine National Standard (PNS) 26: 1992.
PNS 26: 1992 allows manufacturers and importers to sell in the market steel pipes with a plus/minus 10-percent deviation in mass tolerance. A 32mm X 6m steel pipe, for example, should have a weight of 16.32 kilograms. With the plus/minus 10-percent tolerance allowance, only those weighing 14.688 kg to 17.952 kg can be sold in the market.
However, the market monitoring teams of the DTI discovered several big hardware stores in Davao City selling steel pipes that weigh much lower than the minus 10-percent allowance.
A hardware store in Surigao del Sur, meanwhile, was selling steel pipes with the brand “Mighty” that has no Philippine Standard (PS) license.
This, according to the DTI, not only shortchanges the consumers and robs them of their hard-earned money, but also puts at risk the safety of the public.
Hardware stores caught selling substandard steel pipes face a penalty of P150,000 per violation on first offense, plus possible closure. The DTI, thus, reminds hardware stores and PS license holders to ensure compliance with the requirements of PSN 26: 1992.
Steel pipes are normally used in water systems and as scaffoldings. Already, there were several instances when scaffoldings in construction sites collapsed because the steel pipes used were substandard, resulting in deaths and injuries.
This prompted the Bureau of Product Standards and the DTI regional offices to intensify the drive against substandard steel pipes via regular market monitoring operations.
The Philippine steel pipe market is estimated at around P20 billion, with importers bringing in some 300,000 metric tons of steel pipes to the country and local manufacturers producing around 330,000 MT per year. Supposing only 10 percent of the market is substandard, unscrupulous traders are already cheating Filipino consumers P2 billion annually. This is aside from the proper duties and taxes that were not paid to the government.