Industry body sees uptake in registered gas practitioners

28th August 2015

By: Donna Slater

Features Deputy Editor and Chief Photographer

  

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There has been significant uptake in the registration of gas practitioners who want to ensure that their gas systems and connections are safe to use, perform according to regulated methods and adhere to a high quality of work and record-keeping, says gas authorisation organisation the South African Qualification and Certification Committee for Gas (SAQCC-Gas).

SAQCC-Gas is a Section 21 company that comprises four member associations that will establish a central database which displays details of registered and authorised gas practitioners that are qualified to work with gas and on-gas systems.

SAQCC-Gas has been officially appointed and mandated by the Department of Labour (DoL) to register gas practitioners, on their behalf, under four gas industries – natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), air conditioning and refrigeration gas, as well as compressed industrial and medical gases.

Member associations include the LPG Safety Association of Southern Africa, the Southern Africa Compressed Gases Association, the South African Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association and the Southern African Gas Association.

SAQCC-Gas director John Parry tells Engineering News that the number of registered personnel has increased substantially and continues to increase since SAQCC-Gas encouraged gas practitioners to register and train their personnel.

Registration with SAQCC-Gas ensures that gas practitionerare competent to work with gas and on-gas systems, in line with the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Pressure Equipment Regulations.

“Persons working on pressure systems have an obligation to register and/or renew their registration,” he says.

Parry adds that the DoL requested that SAQCC-Gas keep the orgnisation informed of all nonregistered personnel and contractors employing nonregistered personnel. “In many cases, the nonregistered contractors and personnel are responsible for substandard work,” he says.

Parry further notes that nonregistered gas personnel raise serious concerns for gas users, clients and the organisation from a legal, financial and insurance perspective. He notes that users of gas or gas systems need to ensure that only authorised card-carrying gas practitioners are working on gas installations, adding that, in instances where nonregistered gas practitioners are due to undertake work, they should be reported to SAQCC-Gas for further action to be taken against them.

For this reason, SAQCC-Gas provides an online database of registered gas practitioners with their different scopes of qualifications for interested parties to peruse. Parry says a registered gas practitioner’s identification card should include the person’s unique licence number, a photograph of the person and a depiction of the type of gas work the practitioner is qualified to undertake.

SAQCC-Gas issues these cards to authorise gas practitioners, who are classified according to their competence and area of specialisation, including refrigeration gas practitioners, natural gas practitioners, compressed-gas practitioners and LPG practitioners.

Legal Gas Installations
Parry explains that legal gas installations require a certificate of conformity (CoC), which is issued by a registered gas practitioner after installation. The CoC ensures conformity with the Pressure Equipment Regulations.

He believes “it is better to be safe than sorry”, as most insurance companies will not cover incidents caused by gas installations not certified by SAQCC-Gas-certified practitioners.

When issuing an official CoC, the gas practi-tioner’s registration number needs to be filled in and then signed by the practitioner before being handed to the customer or end-user on completion of the installation, or the repair and/or maintenance of a gas appliance, gas system or air conditioner/refrigeration unit.

The CoC stipulations are gas sector-specific and available to registered practitioners from SAQCC-Gas member associations. “Wherever work on gas has been done, the user must receive a CoC; if not, the work done is deemed unauthorised and illegal as per the Pressure Equipment Regulations,” concludes Parry.

Edited by Samantha Herbst
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

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