…And B.E.L. C.E.O. gives reasons for recent power outages
So what if there are power outages and your appliances are damaged? Young explains.
Voice of Lynn Young
“What causes damage to equipment most times is when the wiring in the homes are not properly grounded, then you find that equipment get damage. That’s one of things that cause it and also of course, the issues like lightning hits and the lines and stuff like that but just the act of turning on the power or turning it off will not necessarily damage the equipment unless our guys makes some kinda mistake in their switching. When we find that there was some kind of issue on our switching that we couldn’t avoid because sometimes there are those instances and we honor those claims.
Equipment that is old and near its time, you find that it will blow especially bulbs, for example. You notice sometimes bulbs blow when you put them on because that’s when it draws a big current. So, yes when things are turned off and on, you find a base on in surge but that is part of the nature of electrical system.
A lot of the damages that people bring forward is actually as a result of the communication system not being properly grounded also, so when you have cable system, a cable connected to your television and the cable network is not properly grounded then when the switches get turn on and off, you find that you get a serious voltage imbalance between the cable connection and electrical connection and that has caused lot of damage to television equipment and we’ve been sensitizing the cable companies to that situation. I know the telephone company does very good grounding on its system but we found that a lot of the cable operators were not properly grounded their cable system and that is, we believe the reason why a lot of televisions get damaged when the power goes on and comes off, goes off and come on back.”
Marion Ali
“And for that you don’t take the responsibility?”
Voice of Lynn Young
“No, we don’t. We advise customers and the cable companies to try to get their systems better grounded.”
If you feel your equipment has been damaged by power outages you can call the nearest B.E.L.’s office in your area to make your complaint. And late news to the newsroom is that the planned A.G.M. of B.E.L. has now been postponed to June fifteenth due to the flu threat.
