Company Announcement - The SA Paint Manufacturing Association has advised the SA Department of Health that the government's failure to prosecute paint manufacturers with hazardous levels of lead in their paint products was not only hampering SAPMA's quest for the total elimination of lead in paints, but  would also severely embarrass South Africa if plans to stage a global 'anti-lead-in-paint' conference here in 2018 came to fruition.

SAPMA was recently advised by the International Paint and Printing Ink Council that it was strongly  considering holding its 2018 conference - at which lead in paint would be a major topic - in South Africa. The interest in staging the top level conference here was inspired by IPPIC's admiration for SAPMA's pioneering anti-lead campaign in Africa. IPPIC, in fact,  presented a paper on SAPMA's  African success at a Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paints meeting, organised by the UN Environment Program and the World Health Organisation, in India late last year. IPPIC - a Washington-based global NGO that has consultative status with UNEP - had approached SAPMA (which is a member of IPPIC) for a full report of its South African anti-lead campaign to showcase progress being made for this cause on the African continent.

In the paper, prepared for IPPIC by SAPMA Executive Director, Deryck Spence, SAPMA stated that the SA coatings industry had over many years been maligned and accused by the SA government of being the major contributor to the lead poisoning of children as a result of high levels of lead pigments being used in the manufacture of enamel paints in South Africa. The UN Forum was told that SAPMA had taken a leading role in voluntarily eliminating soluble lead in the early 1970s, in line with British and European standards, as well the establishment of the legislation under the auspices of the Hazardous Substance Act which was promulgated in 2009. SAPMA has also continuously proclaimed that companies still using lead pigments in the production of enamel paints, should be prosecuted under the terms of local legislation. But the pleas to the SA Department of Health had fallen on deaf ears, he stated in his paper. “SAPMA has also participated jointly with the SA Department of Health in numerous awareness campaigns regarding lead in paint, but feel strongly that perpetrators will continue offending because  lead pigments are cheaper than alternatives, unless they are prosecuted - which the S.A. government has so far failed to do,” SAPMA stated in the paper presented to GAELIP.

Deryck Spence a few weeks ago met with Ramsook Loykisoonial, the SA Department of Health Director General, in Pretoria and pointed out that SAPMA was now committed to totally freeing the coatings industry of lead in paint. This decision was reached because of the confusion in different legislation regarding Lead in Paint as far as "industrial" and "solved-based" paints was concerned. "All the major members of the paint industry therefore decided to simply discontinue the use of lead pigments in all paints manufactured in South Africa. But we will not be able to achieve this momentous breakthrough if the legislation prohibiting the use of lead in paint is not government-monitored and regulated through prosecution of offenders," Spence told the DOH Director General.

"More importantly, if the proposed major conference - at which the elimination of lead in paint in South Africa is highlighted as a major national achievement - is to take place in an environment where lead is still prevalent in paint products, it would be highly embarrassing, not only for SAPMA but also the government. "SAPMA therefore urged the Department of Health - which is apparently experiencing difficulty in carrying out sampling studies of paint in retail outlets - to urgently introduce a total ban on lead in paint, and to even more importantly immediately start prosecuting offending manufacturers so that South Africa could put its house in oder before the proposed 2018 conference is held in South Africa," Spence added.