Beneficiaries of the Zebediela Citrus Estate in Limpopo have called on the police to arrest perpetrators behind the spate of fires at the multi-million rand estate. The fires have caused extensive damage to the pack house, lodge, and macadamia trees amongst others.
Three fire incidents have been recorded within a month.
Essential packaging machinery is amongst the valuable assets that have presumably burnt down when a fire broke out at Zebediela.
The latest incident happened on Sunday.
According to one of the beneficiaries, Ike Kekana, hostel dwellers at the farm lost their belongings when a fire broke out two weeks ago.
Kekana alleges that electric cables and computers at the farms were also stolen.
The farm went into voluntary liquidation in April after it failed to settle a debt of more than R170 million.
The farm has been facing financial difficulties since 2016 due to alleged mismanagement of funds.
Kekana wants the estate’s assets to be protected.
“The Zebediela company is being liquidated and the liquidators wherever they are, must be talking to the creditors, asking creditors who owns what and which assets need to be protected.”
Kekana has also urged police to investigate all the arson incidents.
“We are pleading with the South African Police, especially the Zebediela police, to act without fear and favor and talk to everybody on the farm and arrest those that are doing these things. We can’t allow a situation where everything has been burned down and once everything has been burned down, you will not get a single person that will say we want to invest here.”
