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NASH Paints Holdings suffered a loss of over US$1.3 million worth of raw materials and plant equipment destroyed during an inferno.
The fire incident occurred on Thursday morning at around 3am in Graniteside.
The paint manufacturing and distribution firm’s executive chairman, Tinashe Mutarisi, said he was called by the Safeguard security personnel after fire alarms were triggered.
“We got the call from the Safeguard personnel after fire alarms went off and we had to call the Fire Brigade, who responded swiftly.
“They managed to deal with the fire.
“We could have lost a lot of property and I really want to thank them for putting the fire under control.”
He said the losses were in raw materials and equipment.
“We lost over US$1.1million in raw materials and a US$200k section of the US$3 million plant, which was commissioned in 2016.
“It’s a big loss but it could have been worse and this comes after we commissioned a US$1 million plant that was added last year,” said Mutarisi.
He said that their insurer THI was assessing the damage.
“The plant is insured with THI and they are making some progress in their assessments so that we get back on our feet.
“We have clients to serve and a duty to play in building this economy, so we can’t afford to count our losses for a long time.
“By Monday or Tuesday next week, we should be back to our winning ways
“We had no injuries apart from losing the raw materials. No one was on night duty, otherwise it could have been bad,” said Mutarisi.
Nash Paints Chief Operations Officer, Angeline Kasaira, urged their clients not to panic.
“It’s a major setback but we are working on a back-up plan to ensure that production resumes soon. We have incurred some losses but we are acting on good faith to get production running as soon as possible.”
Online Reporter