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Thupeyo Muleya
Property worth thousands of dollars was on Tuesday morning destroyed when a state warehouse caught fire at Beitbridge Border Post.
Border authorities said the cause of the fire was yet unknown and that fire tenders from the local municipality and Noic had been summoned on site.
“The fire broke out between 6 and 7 am, but its cause is yet unknown,” said one official.
The warehouse on the export side becomes a fourth in a few years to go up in smoke. In 2016 another warehouse on the import side went up in flames destroying property worth millions. The fire was attributed to an electrical fault.
In July of the same year another state warehouse was looted and burnt by hoodlums calling themselves Combined Beitbridge Residents Association. The thugs were demonstrating against the implementation of statutory instrument 64, which removed specified goods from the open general import licence (OGIL).
A total of 71 people were arrested in connection with the incident which resulted in 35 cars in and around the State Warehouse being burnt.
In November 2014 property worth millions of dollars went up in flames when the main Zimra Warehouse caught fire under unclear circumstances. The revenue authority set up a crack team to look into the matter, results are yet to be released.
derick.khumalo