The Compañía General de Electricidad (CGE) agreed to initiate a Voluntary Collective Procedure (PVC) to manage compensation for its customers affected by prolonged interruption of the electricity supply after the storm of wind and rain at the beginning of the month.
The director of the National Consumer Service (Sernac), Andrés Herrera, welcomed the above, as it will allow compensation for consumers to be negotiated within a limited period of time.
“From today we are working with CGE in order to reach an agreement as soon as possible that will allow compensation and indemnification to be established, both for the consequential damages suffered by consumersas well as for the moral damage experienced during all these days of long cuts,” he said.
With this, CGE joins the electric company Enel, with which Sernac has already started a working group to achieve the most appropriate compensation for the affected families.
The compensations that Sernac will begin to negotiate with the company are different from the discounts for unsupplied energy that some electric companies, including CGE, announced for upcoming bills.
Both are legal, howeverIn PVC, factors such as moral damage, loss of food, medicines or defects in appliances, among others, are taken into account.
On the other hand, Sernac referred to the situation of Saesa, Frontel and Luz Osorno, who announced on Monday that they will offer discounts on bills, according to what they themselves describe as an act that “exceeds what is established by law.”
In the opinion of Sernac, this is not correct, Since discounts for energy not supplied or for compensation for various damages are not only established in a law.
The proposals made by these companies (Saesa, Frontel and Luz Osorno) are not correct, said the director of the organization and it is expected that in addition to compensation for energy not supplied (electricity law) it will be complemented with compensation for various damages to people’s lives, as set out in the consumer law.
To this end, Saesa, Frontel, Codiner and Chilquinta have been charged with a Compensatory Procedure (PVC) at Sernac, which, unlike CGE and Enel, they have not accepted and for this reason they will be sued if they do not agree to compensate via consumer law.
In this sense, Andrés Herrera argued that “This is once again a unilateral statement that does not guarantee that the compensation being provided by these three companies meets legal standards.”
“It is necessary to clarify that compensations, both under the Electricity Law and those derived from the Consumer Law, are legal compensations that companies are obliged to pay in the event of unjustified interruptions and power cuts,” he added.
Sernac has repeatedly insisted that if none of the companies is willing to accept these arrangements, it will act decisively, in conjunction with all affected municipalities and residents, by filing class-action lawsuits.
2024-08-20 22:54:31