Topic > Fraud Detection in Legal Metrology

Cheating at the weighbridge can be big business. In a recent case, scammers defrauded a major international agribusiness company of $2 million. The scheme involved a scale operator working with suppliers to create bogus tickets for grain shipments that never took place. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In other scenarios the scales are tampered with so as to defraud the tea farmers with bonuses that were not intended for them. Tea harvesters were prosecuted and convicted in the tea growing areas of Kisii, Kericho and Kirinyaga. Inspections carried out in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, at butchers' shops revealed that five out of thirty-two scales had been tampered with. Measurements have been used since time immemorial as a daily way of life in determining distances between a person and his neighbor's farm, when exchanging goods, in estimating the amount of food a family will live on before the next harvest, and in calculating the speed of light. In commerce, measurements are used to determine the quantity of goods in transactions that transfer value in exchange for money. These measurements will be in the form of weight or capacity measurement. The transactions include the sale of meat, car gasoline and a pile of potatoes at a wholesale market. Today, meters are also used as measuring instruments for the sale of electricity and water. Measuring tools, if not used correctly, lead to the distribution of short-lived goods to the buyer. Unscrupulous practices appear to have existed since the early times when the Bible prohibited the use of unjust measures in the Law of Moses. The use of unfair weights and measures leads to many conflicts in business at all levels of business. The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find His favor. Regulations exist to ensure the credibility of measurement results for users, but despite this, losses continue to occur. Kenya has established laws that control the use of measurements in commerce and how accurate they must be within tolerances to ensure credible measurement results. The activities involved include model approval, initial verification and subsequent surveillance. The department of weights and measures internationally is known as legal metrology, which is a field of measurement subject to the requirements of a legislation. The other fields of metrology are industrial and scientific metrology. The use of inaccurate measurement equipment has continued to plague the Kenyan market with no avenue to address it. Unapproved scales are used to determine the quantity delivered to the buyer and the buyer has no possibility of compensation. In the manufacturing industry, weighbridges are the most commonly used measuring equipment for determining the quantity of goods and other raw materials supplied to factories by commercial trucks and warehouses. Weighbridges are verified by statutory weights and measures bodies who verify their accuracy by placing standard masses on the platform and comparing them to the figures generated on the indicator head. After confirming that the scale is accurate, an inspector stamps it and issues a certificate of verification as proof of its accuracy. Unfortunately, dubious records are generated during use, creating the perception that the scale is not accurate. This requires other interventions to force the perpetrators of these atrocities that enable this unfair gain to abandon thetheir rebellious behavior. Consumers have the right to goods and services of reasonable quality. They must also protect their health, safety and economic interests. Governments are obliged to ensure credible measurement results for citizens by defining measurement units, providing traceability mechanisms and associated uncertainty of results. Weights and Measures is one such department responsible for legal metrology and performs the functions recommended internationally by the OIML such as pattern approval, initial verification, mandatory post-verification and post-repair verification. Verification of commercial measuring equipment is carried out annually in a process that requires persons with such equipment to submit it to a weights and measures inspector to test and compare it to working standards and, if found to be accurate within prescribed tolerances, the equipment are stamped and a certificate of verification is issued as proof of their accuracy (Weights and Measures Act cap 513, section 27,2012) When measuring instruments are accurate, consumers' rights to the goods that give them their money's worth are respected . Unfortunately, other factors come into play to deny them this right. These factors are fraud, overcharging and shortage of goods. Fraud is defined as an unlawful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. It occurs when a person wants to gain unfairly by deceiving another person or by making a statement that he or she knows to be false in order to defraud the other person. Examples of fraud include a butcher placing a magnet on the goods side of an equal-arm scale beam so as to deliver less meat to a buyer by an amount equal to the weight of the magnet. Fraud in trade has been a common phenomenon where both the seller and the buyer are naturally inclined to get the best deal in order to out-price each other. Measurements take on a central role as a medium for transactions. The weight of meat purchased from non-measuring scales was less than that sold from measuring scales in Abakiliki and Calabar meat markets in Nigeria. Cheat is conceived as a product of individual and structural variables and processes that interact at different levels to produce negative consequences. Tele Track Africa director, Joshua Mwangangi, during an interview at the Nation Center in Nairobi, revealed that he has invented a safety gadget, a remote weight system that displays the weight, position and speed of a vehicle on your phone or on the end user's computer. Trucks equipped with this device do not have to worry about weighbridge negligence and cannot be manipulated unless the operator's equipment is in play. Weights and measures legislation requires that weighing in the presence of a person involves carrying out the weighing operation by allowing a clear and unobstructed view of the weighing instrument and of any indication given by that instrument regarding the weighing operation. weighing. The weighbridges are installed with an operator station designed to allow the operator to have a clear view of the platform. There are two types of weighbridges available, one built in a pit and the other above the ground. The in-pit type must have a guardrail to confine a truck to the platform, without which a truck can cause some wheels to come off the platform without the operator noticing. After calibration and verification of the weighbridge, a weights and measures inspector seals the indicator with a sealing wire and stamps a caliper on a lead ball with a verification stamp as proof that the instrument is.