By Kathy Gibson – Images of flames engulfing Mustek’s Durban offices swept across social media last night, underlining a potential crisis facing the IT industry as riots and looting exacerbate existing supply shortages.
It’s not even possible to get a clear picture of what happened prior to the Mustek building being set alight and investigations, while underway, can’t proceed in the current climate of unrest – but it’s clear the millions of rands’ in stock and damage has literally gone up in smoke.
Mustek CEO Hein Engelbrecht tells IT-Online that Mustek’s Durban branch is located in the Riverhorse area, which has been particularly hard hit by rioting this week.
“We took the decision on Monday to not open the branch,” he says. “Many staff were already working from home, and we decided to stay closed until there was clarity on what was happening, so there weren’t any staff members on the premises.”
On Monday, rioters entered the office park, and broke into a number of the businesses. At that stage, Mustek’s offices were ransacked. Police arrived and drove rioters off, but they returned once the police had moved on.
At that stage, the rioters gained access to Mustek’s services area and warehouse, where they pilfered or destroyed much of the inventory.
Engelbrecht describes how looters returned to the office park in the late afternoon on Thursday and, finding that the stock had already been looted, set the building alight.
The resultant losses are difficult to quantify at this stage, Engelbrecht says. Although investigations are still underway, it’s likely that the warehouse’s full inventory has been lost, along with office furniture and staff’s equipment. The company’s trucks were also broken into and were likely damaged or destroyed in the fire.