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20090909

Soaring food-thefts due to high prices, warns consumer council

     

    Also some good news: security guard rescues 50 people from burning building.

    September 9 2009 -- Daniëlla du Plooy of Beeld newspaper reports that ‘the economic pains’ are leading countless desperate people to steal. The vast majority steal basic foodstuffs, says Consumer Council director Michael Broughton, while a minority also steal small ‘luxury items’ such as food-sweeteners.

    Broughton said last year, some R4,2-million ‘s worth of consumer-goods were stolen in shops. Thus far up to June 2009, this has already soared past R3-million, with the Christmas season, when stealing increases dramatically, still ahead.

    “People steal items such as rice, sugar, maize-meal and tiny bits of chicken,’ he said. Most of these people are caught after they’ve done their purchases, and then return with the shopping bags to ‘add to their food baskets’. “It’s usually items which they used to always buy in the past, but now no longer can afford,’ he said.

    What is particularly worrying however is the fact that it’s not only those millions of South Africans who live below the ‘breadline’ of $1 a day. “People from higher income groups now are also counted among the new thieves being caught,’ he noted.

    “A woman for instance will steal a little container of sweeteners, because her husband had lost his job and they can’t afford it any longer. People don’t want to do without  such goods,’ he said.

    Anyone who hides stolen items inside their clothing or underneath other goods, can be stopped inside, and even arrested, he said. “In the past, shop-assistants had to wait until such a person had left the shop with the stolen item, but now it’s accepted that one doesn’t just hide something without the intention of actually stealing it.’ He says it’s a tragedy that ‘the recession is forcing people into theft.

    http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/ecab729904244c73b2d918176ab3e4ff/09-09-2009-01-02/Resessie_laat_selfs_die_rykes_nou_steel

     

    Security guard rescues 50 from burning building in Vereeniging

     

    2009-09-09 Sonja van Buul of Beeld newspaper reports from Vereeniging.

    Danie Nortjé (54) Broadway Security Vereeniging rescues 50 from burning building Sept82009 Beeld Afrikaner security guard  Danie Nortjé (54) of Broadway Security company, rescued at least 50 students and office workers from a burning downtown building at 8am yesterday-morning.

    After alerting the fire department when someone alerted him to a first-floor fire, Nortjé first tried to douse it with a small fire-extinguisher. The fire generated thick smoke and high flames from the start, bystanders said. He then started helping terrified workers down from the smoke filled upper floors to safety, breaking down two security doors to let students and workers escape from the college on the second floor. Local businessman Andre van Vuuren said that ‘very few people would have risked their lives like this man had done.’

    The fire is believed to have started at the premises of a traditional healer ‘s shop on the first floor of the Silver Hawk building in Kruger Avenue, downtown Vereeniging, although the cause is still being investigated, writes Van Buul. The local fire department arrived quickly and started dousing the fire while  Nortjé and several firemen broke down a steel security gate and a wooden door which were blocking access to Universal College Outcomes on the second-floor and rescued all the students and personnel there.

    “I don’t know how, but the gate went open with just one powerful pull, it’s probably the adrenaline which made me so strong suddenly,  the soft-spoken security guard explained afterwards.

    One panic-stricken woman jumped from a first-floor balcony to safety, said Gareth Staley of ER24, and taken to Vereeniging MediClinic for treatment of an injured ankle and smoke-inhalation. Six other people also required treatment at various other Vaal-Triangle hospitals.

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