As the birth of our Savior approaches, people are setting aside part of their income for a merry celebration. What all started as a simple birth of Jesus in a manger on a silent night with Joseph, Mary and shepherds awake to witness the coming into flesh of the Word that was sent by the Archangel Gabriel, had transformed over the years into a festive, noisy and at times risky and dangerous celebration. We now link the merry celebration with glittering colorful lights adorning our homes and the commercial establishments that promote the various glittering lights. The businessmen are the ones getting a good income and huge profits from decorations and food that people prepare.
In many of these Christmas celebrations, people tend to forget the need for safety. The proliferation of electrical decorations that flood the market attract people to buy. The items are truly attractive especially with bargain prices that make people believe of having huge savings out of the cheap and discounted prices. Seldom do people care to check if the items are compliant with safety standards set by government. With the rush for the holidays, even the law enforcement agencies could not cope with the demand to check every product. There too are businessmen who take advantage by using face labels and quality standard stickers to deceive the buying public.
Safety issues are raised to the attention of authorities only when accidents happen, destroying properties or even lives. In past years, many conflagrations had caused damage to life and property due to defective Christmas lights that caused sparks resulting to huge fires. It is truly pleasing to the eyes watching colorful Christmas light in homes and public places but people must ensure that all are safe more than happy. It is sad recalling past Christmases where people fell victim to injury and worse, death due to fire accidents.
It is difficult for law enforces nabbing people selling substandard electrical products. It is much easier enforcing the laws at the source, from factories and ports of entry of imported electrical items. The difficulty is in the corrupt system where substandard products get out of factories and pass unnoticed at ports of entry. Big businesses that expect huge profits are just too willing to pay so much just to ensure that law enforcement authorities are looking the other way when their contrabands pass through. They are clever enough to spend so much as they are sure to recover the amount by passing the cost to the end users.
It is everybody’s concern to ensure a safety Christmas celebration. The obligation to sound the alarm at any instance that ordinary citizens notice the entry and sale of illegal and unsafe Christmas electrical lights. Let us not wait to go through the sad experience of losing lives and properties due to our negligence. It must be our safety first more than the beauty of colorful twinkling lights.
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