The owners of Bona Superette have suffered a double blow after opportunistic skelms yesterday looted the fire-damaged store.
The Daily Voice was on the scene when about 15 men and women broke in and helped themselves to half-burnt groceries from the shop in Victoria Road, Grassy Park.
Skelms could be seen crawling through a small gap in the front gate, passing on ash-covered washing powder, toilet rolls and cooldrink to the women, who loaded the loot into prams and homemade carts.
“ Ek kyk maar net vir iets om te salvage,” a man called Brian told Daily Voice, standing with a trolley full of goods.
The supermarket was gutted by a fire early on Saturday morning, caused by exploding gas canisters, which destroyed most of the shop’s stock and infrastructure.
In the meantime, store manager Golam Mostafa hired an additional, unidentified security company to keep an eye on the property, before he starts cleaning up and rebuilding the store, which is not insured.
However, these guards were nowhere on the scene when Daily Voice arrived just after 1pm.
When Grassy Park SAPS members arrived, the people stopped looting, but stood around the shop.
“The owner of the shop was informed that he needed to safeguard his premises, and no criminal case was opened by the owner regarding the looting,” said police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk.
Nervous Bona workers repaired and replaced the damaged gate to the shop under the watchful eyes of cops.
But after the police left, mense got angry because their looting was interrupted.
“ Yoh, ons kinders kan nou lekker pannekoek of vetkoek van die meel nou geeet het,” shouted one frustrated looter.
Another person shouted: “We are entitled to these goods.”
Just then Bona’s regular security detail, ADT Security, pulled up with two vehicles, and guards helped the relieved workers disperse the angry crowd.
Golam tells the Daily Voice the damaged groceries will be removed from the shop today.
“I am very sad about the looting but I can’t be angry at these people,” he says.