Mustek building burned to the ground
Looters attacked Mustek’s offices in the North of Durban on Monday, stealing everything of value and leaving the facility wrecked.
On Tuesday evening a video posted online showed that the building had been set ablaze.
Mustek managing director Hein Engelbrecht confirmed that the building in the video was indeed their Durban office, which the company rented.
With this attack and the subsequent arson, criminals have destroyed a key information technology and computer hardware provider in the eThekwini area.
Mustek’s Durban offices handled orders from technology retailers in the area, dispatched goods to clients, and offered after-sales support services. Stock of some items was held on the premises.
Speaking to MyBroadband earlier today, Engelbrecht said that they had thankfully told the few operational staff still working from the offices to stay home on Monday.
“We just had a feeling… we saw the reports of unrest and some of our staff said that they were struggling to get out of their neighbourhoods. So we told everyone to stay home on Monday,” said Engelbrecht.
With South Africa’s adjusted Alert Level 4 lockdown in place, all the sales staff that usually work from Mustek’s Durban facility were already working from home.
Only some operational staff who work on dispatch and after-sales support were still working from the office.
Engelbrecht said that when the looters first attacked, their security personnel tried to hold them out but were overrun.
One security guard was hospitalised.
The police soon arrived on the scene and dispersed the mob. While the situation was calm the police were called away to quell unrest in a different location.
Engelbrecht said the police had not been gone for ten minutes before the looters returned in full force and stripped the office bare.
Looters also tore through the property, ripping screens off of walls and damaging company delivery vehicles.
Some vandals then returned on Tuesday and set the building alight.
Engelbrecht could not provide an estimate of the cost of the damage.
“We are busy assessing the damage — I don’t want to guess right now,” he said.
The loss of their Durban offices will cause some service disruption for clients in KwaZulu-Natal, but Engelbrecht said it does not impact their national operations.
He said that as soon as the highway between Johannesburg and Durban re-opens, Mustek can restructure to serve KwaZulu-Natal clients from Gauteng — though he added that this will cost a bit more.
Looting continues in Durban as people make their way down Queen Nandi Drive to Umgeni Road where several factory outlets have been hit. People have been flocking to warehouses in Umgeni the whole day. A Mecer building has also been torched. #sabcnews pic.twitter.com/HFvuLnTBo8
— Jayed-Leigh Paulse (@JayedLeigh) July 13, 2021
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