PROPERTY worth thousands of dollars was destroyed by fire yesterday morning at Harare’s Glen View Area 8 Home Industry Complex, leaving thousands of small-to-medium entrepreneurs with no source of livelihood.
By Phyllis Mbanje
Conspiracy theories were abound that the fire could have been a case of arson to conceal a well-orchestrated robbery.
There were sad scenes of tenants rushing to salvage bits and pieces of their furniture and women and men weeping uncontrollably as their property was reduced to ashes.
The fire, believed to have started around 1am, torched several stands including a nearby ZB Bank branch.
A small portion, which had been cordoned off by the police, was said to be the source of the fire.
It was close to the guards’ room.
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Police details who were at the scene refused to speak on record, but said the fire started around 1am.
Workers from a nearby service station raised the alarm when they noticed the fire which had already spread to other stands within the complex.
Distraught owners of the stands could not contain their grief and accused management and the guards of the complex of being part of the “scam”.
“We are not happy about this and we suspect it is the management which has done this. They are very corrupt and we know they did this,” Akim Bwanali, a stand owner, said.
The guards, who were nowhere in sight, were accused of playing a part in the whole saga.
Some said they had been arrested by the police, while others said they had disappeared as they could not face the wrath of the tenants who paid them $3 per night for security services.
Tenants mobbed this reporter as they tried to tell their story with most of them accusing the management team, which is allegedly aligned to Zanu PF, of being behind the destruction.
“They are wicked people who do not have our interests at heart. They make us pay a lot of money, but they are selfish and greedy,” Makebo Mabvuka, who lost five sets of lounge suites worth over $1 000, said.
The fire brigade was called in, but when they arrived, over 60% of the area had already been reduced to ashes.
The station manager at the Harare fire department, Misheck Mukono, said there was not much that they could do as the fire had already spread.
“Our priority was to cut it off before it reached the service station and residential area and also prevent it from spreading to the other parts of the complex,” he said.
The fire brigade connected their hoses to a nearby stream and doused the ferocious flames which were getting out of control.
“As a recommendation, in future, there is need for water hydrants and other water sources, but in this case, it would not have made much difference because the fire was already out of control,” Mukono explained.
