By Daanyaal Matthews
With rampantly chaotic load-shedding schedules, concerns from consumers have mounted over the state of their appliances and overall home safety over possible surges. With these concerns, mounting questions have arisen about liability for damages when appliances are damaged or households are affected. Answering these concerns on VOC Breakfast was Daphne Mokwena, Eskom Spokesperson, who argues that consumers have to be more cautious.
“Customers or owners of the properties need to make sure that when their properties are wired, they ensure that they are protected from damage to either themselves or animals within that vicinity. Hence, as Eskom, we’ve got fact sheets that we normally educate customers for load changing because we know that we do at times, or customers do at times experience what we call phages, that they should protect their appliances. Either way, they disconnect their appliances during load shedding, and it’s only after their supplies are restored that they can plug again.”
While these recommendations are noted, greater concern comes into play when load-shedding schedules are haphazard and consumers have no time to prepare for load-shedding in any respect. However, according to the Eskom Spokesperson, Eskom has no liability in these scenarios.
“At no circumstance with load shedding do we take that liability, as I said, that it’s an emergency situation that we need to implement to protect the system. It’s not any form of negligence from our side,” said the Eskom spokesperson.
