Industry Trade and Labor: Outdated system of weights and measures hurting growth

By MATTHEW KRIEGER
The Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry is hurting economic growth and cheating consumers by failing to keep its system of weights and measures updated, State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss charged in his annual report. The ministry's office of weights and measures did not update standards requirements until 2006 - despite the fact that the new requirements came into effect in 1963 - he noted, adding that the office also has not properly supervised activities at highway weigh and filling stations and has not properly maintained scales used to measure and weigh exports. Lindenstrauss concluded his report on the Office of Weights and Measures by stating that because the office has been essentially operating on standards set in 1947, it has hampered the country's economic growth, and has in fact prevented the further growth of exports. Failure to properly maintain the country's weighing mechanisms, added Lindenstrauss, one of the primary responsibilities of the office, has resulted in thousands of consumers being cheated out of goods that rightfully belonged to them. The spokeswoman's office noted that many of the oversights noted by the comptroller were a result of a lack of sufficient funds alloted to them by the Finance Ministry to hire the proper number of workers in the office of weights and measures and hopes that the situation will be rectified in the near future.