The National Consumer Commission and Ford Motor Company South Africa will be announcing the way forward on Monday with regard to the Ford Kuga utility vehicle.
This follows numerous reports of vehicles bursting into flames, with the The Times reporting that at least 47 Ford Kuga's had caught alight.
One incident in the Wilderness in December 2015 resulted in the death of a Kershal Jimmy.
He burned to death inside his vehicle after an electrical fault behind the vehicle's dashboard on the passenger's apparently sparked the blaze.
"There will be a briefing today in Pretoria whereby the National Consumer Commission together with the CEO of Ford, Mr Jeff Nemeth will make an announcement as in so far as the future of the Ford Kuga vehicle is concerned. What has been decided between the two parties is what is going to be in the best interest of the consumer" said Trevor Hattingh of the National Consumer Commission.
Hattingh told Algoa FM News that the NCC met a high-level international Ford delegation in December to explain what's going on.
He said Ford briefed the NCC on the investigations and the preliminary findings.
Hatting said the NCC insisted that Ford put precautionary measures in place while expediting the investigation into the Ford Kuga issue.
However, he said since the first meeting more reports of Ford Kuga's catching alight were reported.
"It is because of that, that we decided that clearly the mitigating measures that we put in place and agreed upon with Ford bringing the vehicles in and inspecting them, doing safety inspections on all the Ford Kuga vehicles was obviously not enough. That is why we decided that we needed to have another meeting and at that meeting certain undertakings were made and certain plans are going to be discussed today and the overall announcement" Hattingh said.
(Image credit: George Herald)
