Heartbroken and broke, KZN business owners are still battling two months after looting

Durban health shop owner Venishree Govender is heartbroken and broke.

She invested her life savings into building her store Sanctuary of Essence, which sold local and international healthcare products – only for it to be decimated by looters who stormed the Ridge Mall in Shallcross, south of Durban, during the civil unrest in July.

“In a matter of hours, everything that I worked for in 25 years was looted and destroyed.”

Govender has been based at the mall since 2012.

“My bank was on the shelves in the form of stock. I believed that my turnaround in profit was faster than the interest of the bank. Hence this left me bankrupt with my life savings stolen by looters.”

Govender said she suffered an estimated R1.5m in damages and was uninsured at the time.

“The mall was destroyed and still I don't have a retail space to operate from. The business has huge expenses that I have to pay so I am left in a dilemma.”

Her desperation to generate income has seen her take a small space in a business park in Chatsworth.

“I have a place in a business park that I'm operating from but that does not attract retail trade. I need the traffic from a mall environment to increase product sales.

“I will be forced to go back to the same mall due to a having lease agreement with the landlords and to get back to business as well.

“I was not insured, unfortunately, at the time of the looting. I have not received any help yet and I'm in the process of applying for government funding. I'm not sure how that works but I know what I worked for most of my life has been destroyed.”

She is also worried about her two workers who are unemployed as a result of her business being destroyed.

“My biggest stumbling block has been not having the financial support to purchase stock and equipment

“I serviced people from around Chatsworth, Malvern, Shallcross, Burlington Heights, and as far as the north and south coast.

“People relied on my shop because their health depended on it. Our brands were selective and stored only at certain health shops. I feel saddened that I can't meet the needs of my clients any more,” said Govender.

First-time business owner Alyssa Coetzee has also been left reeling. She was given the chance to take ownership of a small printing business she worked at for 12 years. She believed it was a dream come true and an investment in her children's future.

But about six months after taking ownership, her dream turned into a nightmare when looters destroyed her business located at the Montclair Mall, south of Durban, and robbed her of her livelihood.

“The destruction of my shop still makes no sense, what wasn't taken was destroyed and set alight. There is a lot of fire damage to my shop.

“I have five loyal staff members whose families relied on the income from the shop, whom I feel very responsible for.

“The insurance company is in slow motion and I have been informed it will take months to reopen, if that is even possible. I have had to pay rent even though I'm not trading.”

The estimated cost of the damage, said Coetzee, stands at over R1m.

Coetzee said her family now survived on her husband's income which meant negotiating payment plans with their landlord and children’s schools.

“It's quite a hard pill to swallow because I've never had to ask for assistance with anything. It has been really difficult. It has been so hard on my staff who have been without jobs. We are still waiting on their UIF payments.”

Someone else who is grappling to come to terms with the events of July 12 is Sandile KingsfordBele and his business partner Claire Bruigom.

Their small business, Animal Rescue Foods in Waterfall, Durban – which has been supplying cat and dog food to 250 rescue organisations at affordable prices since 2016 – had been obliterated.

The industrial park from where they operated resembled a wasteland after looters trashed, burnt and stole from businesses located there.

Two months later and the duo are still trying to rise from the ashes.

They owe money for stock that was looted, their furniture and factory equipment has to be replaced and they have only recently secured a new premises.

They have had to rebuild their business from scratch using a three-phased approach: restocking their feed, finding a new premises and reintroducing animal medicines.

For now, Bruigom's garage at her Upper Highway home is where they operate from.

KingsfordBele recalled the day their lives changed: “We had heard the violence was rife around our factory, we just kept praying that they would leave it alone. Sadly we received an alarm activation late in the afternoon and realised that after three attempts ... they had finally broken down the perimeters and gained access to what was our livelihood. We had lost it all. 

“We broke the bad news to our 250 animal rescue organisations and fosters around KwaZulu-Natal who were expressing the same level of fear and broken-heartedness. 

“By this stage all had been burnt or looted and the panic and realisation that animal feed could not be sourced economically in our province for the volume that rescue requires. Our business that is committed solely to this purpose for animal rescue feed was rendered useless and helpless to the cause,” he said.

Bruigom said after much deliberation and encouragement from supporters they decided to start over.

“The looting has been devastating to say the least. We were actually one of the factories in the industrial park which was the least damaged. We won't be going back there.

“Our loss was between R80,000 to R100,000 worth of stock and about R30,000 to R50,000 worth of machinery, office furniture, packaging ... the list goes on.

“We were not able to supply stock to animal rescue organisations for at least three to four weeks as the companies we normally buy our stock from were also looted.

“We have an account with our biggest supplier. We had to pay for all the stock that we had received but were not able to sell it because it was looted.

“The next problem was that we could not get stock because we had not settled our bill. It has really knocked us financially.”

The damage done to our business was deliberate and intentional. They urinated over everything, against the doors, products they couldn't move ... We could not comprehend it

—  Claire Bruigom

Their staff – between three and five people depending on the workload – are being paid through donations from clients and a church in Australia.

“The emotional stress has been horrific. Two months down the line it's still hard to talk about. I can feel the tears welling up ... It was the hatred, it's the worst I've witnessed in my life.

“The damage done to our business was deliberate and intentional. They urinated over everything, against the doors, products they couldn't move ... We could not comprehend it.

“We lost our purpose for a while, we had nowhere to go and no stock to purchase. Clients were desperately looking for food.

“Our biggest stumbling block has been financial. In hindsight maybe insurance would have helped us. But we don’t have the capital to float ourselves, our profit margins are too little. So we have to keep the costs down.

“These organisations we support need cost-effective food in large quantities. I do think we need counselling.

“The very SA thing to do is buckle down, make a plan and get going. Our problems are big but our God is bigger. We will get through it,” said Bruigom.

Durban property magnate Gary Gould has experienced a rollercoaster of emotions since his two malls – one in Umlazi and the other in Inanda – were looted, burnt and vandalised during the civil unrest in July.

It has been two months since shoppers set foot in either the Philani Valley Mall, south of Durban, or the Dube Village Mall in the north.

Both malls – which have served thousands of shoppers in the communities they're based in – are in ruins as Gould, a major shareholder, waits for state-owned insurer Sasria to pay his R137m claim for damages incurred when the properties were stormed by looters.

“Both malls have just been sitting as they were after they were looted.

“We can’t turn on the electricity or the water because it will cost us a few hundred-thousand rand.

“The looters stole all the taps and pipes and broke the toilets. If we turn the water on it would just leak everywhere.”

Gould said he has asked Sasria for an interim payment for each mall and has put in a loss of rental claim for August “as none of our tenants paid rent for that month”.

If we rebuild these malls and in six months' time they get destroyed, then what? I don't know if I can deal with that the second time around

—  Mall developer Gary Gould

“Our final estimate to get Dube Village restored is R79m and to get Philani restored is R58m. Both malls are not operating, none of our tenants are there. All we’ve got there now is security.

“All of the service providers, other than security and all of the tenants' staff – everybody has been temporarily laid off until we can reinstate the mall.”

Gould said he submitted a claim to Sasria a week after the unrest. “We have not received a cent and have no indication of when we will receive any money.”

He said major investors in both malls initially were hell-bent on selling their shares and cutting their losses after seeing the destruction. “Subsequent to that those investors have changed their minds and decided to stay.”

Gould said his investors were in no rush to lay out any money towards rebuilding because of the possible risk of a repeat of events.

“Instigators of the unrest are still out there. While they may have lost the element of surprise they had the first time, people are still nervous.

“If we rebuild these malls and in six months' time they get destroyed, then what? I don't know if I can deal with that the second time around.”