According to The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce CEO Edison Sumner, 17,000 Japanese vehicles are imported into the country on an annual basis.

Off the heels of a trip to Japan, he said that quite a number of these  automobiles undergo radioactive contamination inspections. 

However, Mr. Sumner   said that a few residents may unfortunately commute in vehicles with radioactive contaminants unknowingly.

He said, “when they put these little sensors  on these cars  and the thing lights up like a Christmas tree, and say that they have to pull this car off the line because this car has radioactive contamination,  because of the earthquake in Japan,  a couple of years ago near the industrial and nuclear plants.”

He added, “A lot of chemicals got into these vehicles and are still there, and these cars are now driving on our streets because someone who sent away to buy a car from Japan didn’t go through the proper channels to get their car inspected properly, and some of the people inspecting vehicles in Japan were not inspecting it for some of these kinds of other elements.”

Experts say that a person subjected to radioactive particles for lengthy periods of time can experience a number of lung diseases or even cancer. 

Mr. Sumner said that he made this visit as the Vice Chair of the Standards Bureau where he realized other areas of concern.

He said that he saw that the tires did not have sufficient threads in them, which aids in traction on the roads. 

This, he said, fueled the bureau to push for improved standards.

He said, “we  in this country say that we’re accepting gifts from some American Corporations or some Canadian Corporations and we are in the papers boasting about getting all these computers   from these companies. When you look at it,  if you cannot prove that these are brand new computers coming into this country, all we have become is another dumping ground for computers. They can’t dump in the US. ”

He added, “we put them in our schools and we put them in our homes and we say,  ‘Oh we have some wonderful new computers coming in’. They ain’t new! We got them because they couldn’t find anyone else to take it from them.” 

On  a trip to Africa, Mr. Sumner said that African officials pointed out that a lot of the cars that are allowed in The Bahamas cannot come in to Africa. 

Mr. Sumner was the guest speaker yesterday at the Rotary Club of South East Nassau.