BY MARK RAMOTAR
Guyana Chronicle
May 16, 2001

GUYANA will be joining the rest of the international community by going metric when that system will be applied with legal force and validity from January 1, 2002.

The Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) is moving ahead with arrangements to ensure that by that time, all Guyanese will be able to speak the "international language of commerce".

According to GNBS Director, Dr Chatterpaul Ramcharran, only the metric system shall be applied in Guyana from January 1 next year, replacing the imperial system that has been in use for years and is still the preferred choice of many.

The imperial system will cease to have any legal force or validity come that date, Ramcharran said at a news conference last week.

He said the bureau would continue to conduct workshops in all regions and improve its public relations programme.

According to him, GNBS has intensified its programmes in a committed effort to ensure that all are ready for the change from imperial to metric come January 1 next year.

Order No. 4 under the Weights and Measures Act, which was gazetted on January 27 this year, gives effect to the metric system at the start of next year.

Ramcharran also noted that the metric system is a "brilliant, modern and universal system and it is convenient to use and far superior to the imperial system...a coherent system and it is really a language of international commerce."

"I urge all stakeholders and all Guyanese to take urgent steps to understand the metric system and to implement and use the metric system," Ramcharran urged.

He also pointed out that when one looks at the current situation in Guyana it could be found that the health system is purely metric and so too is the education system.

The manufacturers of scales are all producing purely metric scales and metric weights, he added.

"The trading of goods, the goods that we export, are all labelled in metric units; the goods that are imported into this country, if they don't carry the metric units only, they will carry the dual units (both metric and imperial)," he further noted.

Ramcharran also said that almost 90 per cent of the scales in Guyana have already been converted from the imperial to the metric system.

He said efforts are being made to convert the other 10 per cent of the scales in time for January 1, 2002.

He is urging Guyanese to use kilograms (kg) and grams (g) instead of pounds (lbs) and ounces (ozs); litres (l) and millilitres (ml) instead of pints and gallons; and metres (m) and centimetres (cm) instead of yards and inches.

Other changes: Instead of quarter-pound ask for 125 g; instead of half pound ask for 50 g; instead of one pound ask for 500 g; and instead of two pounds ask for one kg.

Instead of half pint ask for 250 ml; one pint - 500 ml; two pints - one litre; instead of half gallon ask for two litres; and instead of one gallon ask for four-and-a-half litres.

And, instead of one foot, ask for 30 cm; instead of one yard, ask for one metre (one yard, 3 inches) and check height in centimetres (cm).