The bill – dubbed Weights, Measures, and Calibration Act – proposes to add a new chapter (a chapter 17) to Title 11 of the Palau National Code to promulgate laws “pertaining to the lawful calibration of weights and measures and weighing and measuring equipments within Palau.”
As stated in the body of the bill, there are no laws in Palau, which govern commercial and trade weighing and measuring scales or equipment. Moreover, the are no guarantees in existence that all measuring and weighing practices in Palau are synchronized and that the equipments and scales used in business activities are properly calibrated and used appropriately.
The bill was introduced on the belief that proper calibration of scales and equipment used in business and trade activities in Palau would allow for a “uniform and transparent commercial and governmental practices; and that consumers of weighed or measured products would receive fair and equitable services.
If the bill was passed into law soon after its introduction, the following weighing and measuring scales – and all others if need be – could have been calibrated to register and display the same results: fuel pumps, electric meters, water meters, gas meters, and food scales. If it became law, gallon container could be filled with fuel to exactly the same level no matter which gas station it is filled from; and that a pound of fish weighed in Kayangel State would register equivalent weight in weighed on a different scale in Sonsorol State.
For more than two years, it has been discussed but has remained in the Olbiil Er a Kelulau. On July 08, it was brought to the HOD’s table again for discussion on its third and final reading. The scales tipped and it has been deferred.
