The Boksburg Child Welfare Centre is devastated following reports of two break-ins and malicious damage to property in two separate incidents at their office in Vosloorus Extension One on January 15 and 17.
The first incident occurred on Friday when the criminals broke the burglar door and entered inside the centre through the ceiling.
This was followed by another break-in by the criminals through the roof on Sunday, probably to take some of the items they left in the hallway and the ceiling, including computer monitors.
The criminals searched every office and stole computers, a microwave, the secretary’s laptop, and an electric kettle before leaving serious damages to the structure at the centre. The ceiling, cupboards, alarm system, the front door and office doors were damaged as they forced their way inside.
The director of Boksburg Child Welfare, Vanessa Naidoo-Pillay, said the centre was closed for a week due to a suspected Covid-19 case and on their return on Saturday the staff was flabbergasted to find the centre damaged.
“One of the staff members, Lindy, got a call from Vimba Security Company who services our office and they informed her that the alarm went off. We notified them that the office has been closed for the entire week and that nobody is at the property so they should go and check,” she explained.
“And they did not come back to us, so we thought they did not find anything or maybe the alarm went off because of the weather, we did not expect that we were broken into, but I guess it’s because they removed all the alarms.
“The security is no longer taking my calls. When I phone to speak to the manager, they are always not available and end up cutting my call. There has been no report issued from Vimba Security as to what happened, if the alarm went off or if their armed response came through to check,” said Naidoo-Pillay.
She explained that the community will be severely impacted until they can clean up the centre. With the consideration that the centre has been closed for the whole week, there is a backlog of cases that need to be attended, Naidoo-Pillay added.
“We are waiting for the assessor to come and check the damage then we can clean up the office. We then have to make sure that everything is safe because the ceiling boards are hanging, we can’t have clients coming in and it falls on them, so we have to remove all of that,” she said.
Naidoo-Pillay mentioned that they still must disinfect the office because they do not know who has been in the office for the past week.
The director said they will be able to identify all missing items once the staff returns to the office this week.
“The returning staff will have to check for any missing items in their offices because they have individual offices; they will know what is missing,” she added.
“I am hoping we will be open before the end of this week. Even if the damages are not repaired, we just need to make sure that the office is safe for the clients to come in so we can start serving them,” she continued.
“Whoever has done this has set the community back because I am sure the community has lots of cases that it needs to report to us, and we need to get back on existing investigation cases on placements in foster cares,” said Naidoo-Pillay.
Boksburg Child Welfare registered a case with the police.
Vosloorus SAPS spokesperson Piet Rossouw confirmed a case of business break-in has been opened with the Vosloorus police station, police are investigating the case.
