Crackdown on two-pin plug sales
SHOPS selling electrical goods without a threepin plug will face a greater threat of prosecution, the head of the Electrical Engineers Chamber (EMO) Ali Murat Cellatoğlu warned this week.
Speaking to CyprusToday ’s sister newspaper Kıbrıs, Mr Cellatoğlu said the EMO will begin to enforce a prohibition on the sale of goods fitted with two-pin plugs “from now on” 17 years after the ban came into force.
Electrical sockets in the TRNC are based on the British “type G” three-wired grounded and fused plugs, that are also used in South Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Singapore and Hong Kong.
However most electrical devices are imported from Turkey, which, like the rest of Europe, uses the two-pin “type C” and “type F” plugs.
Mr Cellatoğlu said that the EMO had been demanding for several years that the plugs on imported goods are fitted with three-pin plugs before they reach North Cyprus or changed at customs.
The move had been opposed by vendors, however, who claimed that it would create too much of a burden on them, and instead offered to sell products with an apdapter.
Sellers are now complaining about the costs of adapters, Mr Cellatoğlu said.
He added that inserting two-pin plugs into three-pin sockets was “very risky”, particularly for children, as the plugs do not have an earth connection to prevent electric shocks and electrical fires.
According to the worldstandards.eu website the “British Standard BS 1363” system requires use of a “three-wire grounded and fused plug for all connections to the power mains”.
“Two-wire class II appliances are not earthed and often have a plastic grounding pin which only serves to open the shutters of the outlet,” the website states.
“The lack of such an earth pin on a type C plug makes it impossible to connect it to a type G receptacle, although it can actually be forced into the socket by sticking a pointy object into the centre hole of the power outlet, which opens up the two other holes. Just to be perfectly clear, this is not a piece of advice; it’s simply an observation…”