All five gas regulators and three cylinder valves available on the market had failed specialised testing in Finland but only two regulators were withdrawn, The Times has learnt.
The regulators and the valves had been sent to a Finnish laboratory following an unprecedented wave of complaints of gas leaks late last year.
The competition and consumer affairs watchdog admitted that such tests were not carried out as a matter of procedure but depended on complaints.
“This action was taken in an effort to try to eliminate the problems of leaking LPG. It is not regular practice for the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority to test regulators and valves,” a spokesman said when asked.
The results of the test in Finland led the regulating authority to conduct a risk assessment of each product and eventually decide on the withdrawal of two of the five regulators: the green ones manufactured by Italian supplier Lagoplast, and the blue TPA Butane regulators.
The remaining three regulators and three valves, which also failed the test, were not deemed to pose such a serious risk to consumers.
When asked what the problem was with the components that were not recalled, the regulator’s spokesman would only say that the non-compliance to international standards of the other three regulators was “minor”.
He said the valves were found to be compliant to established international standards and “should not be recalled”.
However, Michael Zarb and Adrian Baldacchino, the owners of two companies that import the recalled blue regulator, Petrolea and JP Baldacchino Group, pointed to a problem with the valves rather than their regulators.
“We insist that the problem is not with the regulator, which is the best-selling regulator in the UK and other European countries, but with the valves of the green cylinders.
“We are sure of the quality of the regulators we sold. As a result, the problem was not solved with the withdrawal of the regulators because the problem lies with the valve,” they said.
They insisted that the problems began when green gas cylinders appeared on the market.
Their argument would appear to tally with the regulator’s own admission that it received an unprecedented number of complaints last winter leading to the components being sent to Finland.
Moreover, Petrolea and the JP Baldacchino Group said they conducted an independent test on the valve seal of the cylinders and found that this was slightly larger than those on the yellow cylinders and was, therefore, causing leaks.
“Why were the valves not withdrawn if the seals failed the test,” Mr Zarb asked.
The regulator’s spokesman replied thus: “The valves tested were found to be compliant and any issues regarding the seals were discussed with the manufacturer.”
The competition and consumer affairs watchdog has been dealing with complaints of leaks for the past years. Each time, the problem would be looked into with the company concerned and the problems would be ironed out after a few weeks, according to the spokesman.
However, the level of complaints seen last winter prompted the regulator to test the components. The spokesman attributed the level of complaints to the fact that the regulators were being used more frequently on gas heaters indoors, making the leakage of gas more evident.
The Times reported last week that Easygas was selling illegal gas cylinders bearing no serial numbers, a basic safety standard that establishes the age and maintenance history of a cylinder, among other things.