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‘Report damaged appliances caused by frequent outages’
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Posted on Oct 27 2008
A lawmaker yesterday repeated his call for utility customers to report any damage caused by frequent power outages to their household appliances.
Rep. Joseph Reyes is collecting the information in a bid to get the customers compensated for the damages. He began the effort two months ago, but the response has been “pretty slow,” he said.
“I know there are a lot of people out there who have experienced damage to one or more of their household appliances. I have talked to many of them. I need them to provide me with the data so I can see what can be done. Somebody has to be responsible for those damage,” said Reyes.
For many months before Aggreko’s rental generators went online, Saipan residents suffered daily power outages lasting at least two hours. Many customers of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. have complained that the power outages and fluctuations caused their appliances to malfunction, if not completely break down.
In a public notice, Reyes urged those customers to notify his office before Nov. 15 of the date and time the damage occurred, the type of appliances damaged, and the estimate dollar value of the loss.
“It’s bad enough that we’re paying so much for power. Now they’re going to ruin our appliances too? We will not be punished any further,” he said in an interview yesterday.
He said affected customers should get tax credits or some other form of compensation for the broken appliances. But he added that this proposal would not be worth pursuing if people didn’t provide the data.
