Power cuts despite waiver of shutdown – salzburg.ORF.at
Claudia Lainscek lives with her seriously ill husband and her 16-year-old son in a 50 square meter apartment in Salzburg Maxglan. Last year, Lainscek got into economic difficulties through no fault of his own, as she explains: “I normally get around 1,400 euros a month. Then I only received 559 euros. A month later, I didn’t get paid at all. Ever since then I’ve been fighting for my money.”
Salzburg family without electricity for two days
Due to lack of money, she can no longer pay the electricity bill. What has to come will come: reminders and threats of shutdown. Claudia Lainscek hears the announcement from Governor Wilfried Haslauer of the ÖVP that power cuts should be avoided as an anti-inflation measure in cases of hardship.
Lainscek says that she then contacted Salzburg AG customer service: “I would have wanted to fix the electricity, but Salzburg AG was quicker to switch it off. Although I explained to them that I am currently not receiving the money from work. But they didn’t care.”
Dankl: “More and more are losing electricity”
When the lights go out for two days in mid-March, Claudia Lainscek turns to KPÖ councilor Kay Michael Dankl. In addition to the Caritas electricity aid fund, “Licht ins Dunkel” and the Lions Club, Dankl also supports her with some money so that she can compare the electricity bills.
At the same time, he criticizes the supposed switch-off waiver: “Although this switch-off waiver was announced in February by Governor Wilfried Haslauer, I am still experiencing for myself how more and more Salzburg families are losing electricity. The switch-off waiver was promised, but has not materialized in reality. That doesn’t add up and raises the question of how seriously Haslauer’s announcements about the cost-of-living package really are intended.”
Haslauer: “Something went wrong”
Governor Wilfried Haslauer of the ÖVP will not change this criticism: “Something seems to have gone wrong, but that’s nothing to do with the basic strategy that at least by the end of May a waiver of shutdown has been agreed with Salzburg AG.”
However, Martin Zauner from Salzburg AG customer service puts this switch-off waiver into perspective: “The switch-off waiver in cases of social hardship is not a general amnesty. But that doesn’t mean that we’re going out and shutting down plants. That would not be operationally possible at all.”
Dunning runs as usual
In other words, the usual dunning process with the first reminder, after two weeks a second reminder and after two weeks the last reminder plus the switch-off date continues as usual. It is also not a task of Salzburg AG, nor is it possible to check who is a case of hardship, says Zauner: “But we try very hard to treat all cases that we learn of as accommodatingly as possible, and to really not experiencing any social hardship.”
With 240,000 private customers in the state of Salzburg, however, this is of course not always possible, adds Zauner: “There will always be individual cases where it happens.” This is also the case with Claudia Lainscek, where the electricity is currently flowing again.
Power shutdowns despite waiver of shutdown
Salzburg AG continues to cut off electricity – despite the waiver of switching off. The KPÖ sees the governor as obliged to comply with his anti-inflation announcements. The governor and Salzburg AG emphasize that these are individual cases.