What SAHPRA actually requires before a gamma source goes to site
22 July 2026 · MPIA Services
Industrial radiography is one of the most tightly regulated activities in South African industry, and rightly so: it takes sealed radioactive sources out of shielded facilities and into rail corridors, plants and construction sites. The regulator is SAHPRA's Radiation Control unit, operating under the Hazardous Substances Act (Act 15 of 1973), and the threshold is low — any radionuclide above 4 kBq of activity must be licensed. For field radiography with mobile gamma sources, SAHPRA publishes dedicated guidance covering the use of sources outside fixed shielded facilities. Anyone commissioning NDT should know what a compliant operation looks like, because the licence is carried by the contractor but the risk is shared by the site.
The shape of a compliant field operation
Compliance is not a certificate in a drawer; it is a daily operating discipline. In practice it means licensed sources with documented custody at every movement; a demarcated, monitored exclusion zone around every exposure; radiation surveys before and after work; personal dosimetry for every worker in the controlled area, with doses recorded and tracked against occupational limits; and a Radiation Protection Officer function with the authority to stop work. Each of those elements produces a record — source logs, survey readings, dose registers, safe-work instructions — and the records are what an inspector, or an incident investigation, will ask for first.
Questions an asset owner should ask any radiography contractor
Is the operation SAHPRA-licensed, and for the sources actually being brought to site? Who is the RPO and what are the emergency arrangements? How are exclusion zones established and communicated to other site personnel? Are pre- and post-exposure surveys performed and logged? How is worker dose monitored and where are the records? A contractor who can answer these fluently, with paperwork behind each answer, is running a real radiation-safety regime. One who cannot is transferring risk to the site.
Where MPIA Services fits
MPIA Services operates under a SAHPRA licence with a documented radiation-safety regime: source custody and sealed-source logs, pre- and post-exposure surveys, daily dose registers and TLD-based personal dosimetry, safe-task instructions and RPO oversight — captured digitally in the field as the work happens.
SOURCES
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