The fire comes barely a month after an inferno that gutted C.A Sales. The spate of fires in recent times has already set tongues wagging on whether these are accidents or the hands of some malicious characters.
At the time of going to press the police had not established the cause of the fire and could not quantify the extent of the damage. It is however believed that millions of pula worth of goods have been destroyed in the building.
Borakanelo Police Station Superintendent, Michael Hambira said they have already started an investigation on the fire.
According Hambira the company’s Chief Executive was out of the country at the time of the incident. He howevere said they would have to talk to other managers and employees to do their investigations.
Asked whether he read anything suspicious on the spate of fires that have hit businesses he said he would not want to speculate.
``You want me to speculate and I will not do that. I rely on investigations,’’ he said.
One of the directors, Javed Akbur, told monitor that they do not know what caused the fire. He however said they have a fire detector in the building. At around 5 p.m the detector sent signals to the fire brigade that something was burning in the building.
``The fire brigade alerted us and I actually opened the premises for them,’’ he said.
Akbur told Monitor that the business was opened for business on Sunday from 9 to one’O clock and nobody had picked anything untoward until the directors received that shocking call from the fire department at around 5 p.m.
According to employees of the company, interviewed at the scene,the building housed a lot of materials such as electricals, bathroomware, ceiling, paints and thinners and other costly materials.
Some of Jamal customers who rushed to the scene on the night said they were apprehensive that the fire may have destroyed information on their accounts.
`Some people have deposit accounts with this store and it is possible that information may have gone with the fire. Should that happen this would be disastrous to a lot of people,’’ said one customer who did not want to be named.
Jamal is understood to be giving accounts to a lot of Batswana and construction companies and this might affect construction in a big way. Some council and government projects would be seriously be affected.
Akbur has however allayed these customers fears saying that they were doing all they could to get all the back-up information on all accounts.
``Jamal is an old company. We have been here for the last 32 years. There is no how we are going to cheat Batswana. People should have faith in us,’’he said.
Akbur said they will do all in their power to maintain business.
``We will try and maintain business as usual.’’
