WATCH: Road to recovery for Briardene businesses continue after KZN unrest

IN the wake of an unprecedented chain of events that saw businesses looted and razed in last year’s KZN unrest, several businesses have had to rebuild from the ground up.

This is true for businessmen, James McClelland and Phillip Sewpersadh, who operate businesses at the North Coast Road Industrial Park on Krishna Road in Briardene.

In July last year, several businesses within the park were looted and then set on fire – a tragedy that cost millions of rand worth of damage.

McClleland, who co-owns an industrial air-conditioning company said a year on from the July unrest, the fear remains of a recurrence of looting.

“My business partner and I co-own four units within the industrial park – of these, three were completely burned to the ground. We’ve been lucky in that our rebuilding phase has been completed on two units, which has allowed us to return to full operations. The fear, however, is always lingering in the back of my mind. We estimate the loss of our equipment and downtime to be more than R8m which set our customers and us, as a business, back.

“I’ve been trying to reflect on the July unrest a year on, and the truth of the matter is, it still doesn’t make sense. The scale of destruction – looting is one thing – burning businesses to the ground is another. Before the unrest, the worst thing we had to deal with were break-ins. The scale of destruction is something I have never witnessed or experienced in my lifetime. I really thought long and hard about closing up shop and leaving it all behind, but I’m glad we stuck it out,” he said.

Another businessman, Phillip Sewpersadh, who runs a printing business from the park, said he lost his life savings in the looting.

He started his printing business more than 30 years ago and had employed 28 people at his business, however, within two days, that would all end up in smoke.

“I remember desperately trying to get to the business to remove some of our computers and other items, but within a day, my business had first been looted and then set on fire the next. We lost drilling machines, aluminium plates; every piece of metal the looters could carry was taken away before the business was set on fire. I even lost our company vehicle which was burnt to a crisp and then dragged into the middle of the park.

“It was heart-breaking to lose everything I’d worked for. All my life savings gone. To have to tell the 28 people I employed I had to let them go was incredibly tough. It is a year on, and I’ve only managed to re-employ five people. The rebuild process will be slow, but I have a gut feeling that this could start up again. We are all trying in our own way to survive. While there is a little light at the end of the tunnel, it all seems so far away,” he said.