In October, industry body the Southern African Plastic Pipe Manufacturers Association (Sappma) announced changes to its board of directors, as well as the winners of its 2014 Merit Awards.

The announcement was made during Sappma’s tenth annual general meeting (AGM), which was held in Midrand, in central Gauteng.

Sappma’s new board of directors include water reticulation and drainage pipe manufacturer DPI Plastics’ Gerhard Kotzee; glass reinforced polyester pipe and fitting manufacturer Fiberpipe’s Hein Momberg; plastic-piping solutions provider Marley Pipe Systems’ Ronnie Krüger; high-density poly- ethylene pipes manufacturer Rare Plastics’ Tony Dean; energy and chemicals group Sasol’s David Mokomela; and Sasolburg-based independent plastics manufacturing company Safripol’s Bernhard Mahl.

Sappma chairperson Jan Venter tells Engineering News that Sappma’s board consists of between six and seven nominated members from the industry.

“These board members are tasked with providing assistance to the association on its direction, strategy, membership, finances, legal issues and marketing activities,” he explains.

He tells Engineering News that Sappma has undertaken six surveys over the past 40 months and results of each survey were released once completed.

“We took samples from all our members and several from available nonmember companies,” says Venter.

He explains that nonmember companies’ samples were bought by Sappma from distributors and merchants. Therefore, the actual number of companies that participated in each survey varied from survey to survey.

“Our recent rounds of pipe quality surveys have all shown a positive downward trend, indicating that we are seeing fewer incidents of nonconformance in pipe production,” states Venter.

He explains that sampling on these surveys was focused on the most popular and “vulnerable” product standards, namely the SANS 4427:2008 standard for plastic piping systems, such as polyethylene pipes and fittings for water supply; the SANS 791:2010 standard for unplasticised poly- vinyl chloride (PVC-U) sewer and drain pipes as well as pipe fittings; the SANS 967:2011 standard for PVC-U soil waste and vent pipes as well as pipe fittings; and the SANS 1601:2010 standard for structured wall pipes and fittings of PVC-U for buried drainage and sewerage systems.