The National Regulator of Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) has indicated that it will not act against an online supplier of illegal baby seats in a longstanding matter that has provoked the ire of Peggie Mars, founder of Wheel Well, a non-profit watchdog monitoring the safety of minors in transit. The matter first came to FTW’s attention at a public presentation by the NRCS in February during which Mars accused the organisation of not acting progressively against merchants flouting the regulator’s own public safety standards. Mars conclusively proved that in at least one case a certain child-restraining seat, “Wonder Woman”, did not appear on the NRCS’s database of “homologation” – the term used to indicate that imported goods have been safety-checked and issued with Letters of Authority (LOAs). However, although one of the websites that kept on selling Wonder Woman seats has since closed down, it merely sold its illegal stock to another e-commerce concern that believes it is not their responsibility to obtain an LOA for the seats they are selling. When FTW approached the NRCS about the seats which are still for sale several months after Wheel Well first raised alarm, they failed to see what the problem was. Mirriam Moswaane, acting on behalf of regulator CEO Edward Mamadise, replied to several questions saying: “We dealt with this. Please help me understand what the query is now.” After it was made clear that an unregulated child safety seat was still for sale via a site called www.fati. co.za, neither Moswaane nor Mamadise’s personal assistant, Theresa Stoltz, responded. Engagements with Fati, whose manager wouldn’t reveal his or her identity, were also futile. “We do not import the car seats ourselves,” Fati said. “They were purchased a while back from Happy Deals” – the site that closed down after it emerged that it was importing goods without following NRCS procedures. Most alarmingly, Fati is still trying to sell the seats in question despite the fact that they are not homologated and therefore not approved according to Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) safety standards as proscribed by the NRCS. In its written reply to FTW, Fati said: “We did not think they (the seats) were illegal as we thought Happy Deals imported them correctly.” Mars has since stated that if the NRCS believes the matter has been dealt with, it means the regulator should act according to a statement issued in March earlier this year. In response to the issues around Wonder Woman seats, the statement said: “The NRCS would want to reiterate that rooting out non-compliant products from the market is placed high on its agenda and remains a key priority for the organisation.” Responding to the NRCS comments, Mars said: “If an LOA issued by the NRCS bearing the relevant ECE number cannot be produced by any of the parties involved, the item cannot be sold.” She said Fati was well within its rights to try to reclaim money from Happy Deals, but not by trying to sell the seats in question. As for the NRCS, Mars said the authority was not fulfilling its mandate to police the legality of goods for sale on the open market, and that she was “astounded” by their indifference. –Eugene Goddard