WITH an estimated 55 000 membership in KwaZulu-Natal, Abahlali base Mjondolo, the shack dwellers movement, has expressed fear that confidential information about their movement, has fallen into the wrong hands, following a break-in at their offices in Diakonia.
Mqapheli Bonono, a spokesperson for Abahlali baseMjondolo, said that it was clear that the thieves were looking for information, not money.
“There was money in the safe which was not touched and other easily saleable items, like our microwave, television, cameras and mobile sound system which were not taken.”
“One of the hard drives that they took is old and would have very little resale value. However, the two hard drives and the external hard drive that were taken contain lots of information about our movement, including the audited database of our membership which is a spreadsheet with every member’s name, age, phone number, ID or passport number and other details, details of all our branches, our correspondence with other progressive organisations in South Africa and elsewhere in the world, and so on,” he said.
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The burglary was discovered on Thursday morning when staff arrived for work at the Diakonia Centre.
According to Bonono, the break-in was the work of intelligence.
“Shortly after the arrest of the eThekwini mayor, Zandile Gumede, our offices in Durban were broken into. We strongly suspect that this break-in was linked to our opposition to the mayor. We can’t be certain about the motivation for the break in but our immediate suspicion is that it is linked to our opposition to the mayor of Durban, and the councillors who support her,” added Bonono.
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