Fire guts family business

All that remains of a family-run fruit and vegetable store in Hanover Park is ash and embers.

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Cape Town - All that remains of a family-run fruit and vegetable store is ash and embers. The makeshift structure, whose occupants had their roots embedded in the community, has now been reduced to rubble.

The Cape Argus visited the site in Hanover Park on Thursday where the Mohammed family ran their business – the store was the only thing of value left to them by their patriarch Ganief Mohammed.

The building was lost to flames in what the family believes was an arson attack.

The store stood near the end of Surran Road at the Hanover Park terminus and consisted of eight wooden structures and two metal containers.

Ganief’s sons, Nafiek, 40, and Faiek, 39, inherited the 30-year-old business from their father four years ago when he died of a heart attack. “My father started the business selling avocado pears from crates and myself and my brother would help him after school each day,” Nafiek said.

He was alerted to the fire by the local garage owners at around midnight on Wednesday, but when he arrived he helplessly watched the structures go up in flames.

“I am heartsore. My mother and my sisters were here last night crying because my father left it here for us. When I opened the gate the wind came in and the flames just spread. I could not do anything to stop it. I was trying to douse it with water but it was too high,” he said.

Produce worth more than R40 000 was lost. Nafiek said fresh goods had been delivered on Saturday, and older produce had been stored in the eight wooden structures beside the store.

Faiek said he believed drug addicts were responsible for causing the fire as a group of them regularly stood just outside the structure, “doing their business”.

“I suspect guys were smoking drugs and then lit the fire. A week before, they broke in here. Maybe they came back to steal some more stuff. It is dark in here and there was no electricity, it (the fire) must have been lit by someone,” he said.

The city council’s fire and rescue services spokeswoman, Liezl Moody, confirmed the fire occurred at about midnight on Wednesday. “There were no injuries or deaths.” She said it was not yet known if arson was the cause of the blaze but it had been caused by “dropping a light on combustible materials”.

One of the nine employees, Haroen Noble, said he felt a deep sadness that his place of work was reduced to “a heap of ash” as it had a history that people connected to.

gadeeja.abbas@inl.co.za

Cape Argus