By STAFF REPORTER
Eastern Cape police are investigating a case of aggravated robbery after the Makhanda Post Office was robbed on Wednesday morning.
Spokesperson Brigadier Tembinkosi Kinana said the Postmaster was forced to open the back door by four armed men when she arrived at the premises.
He said they also forced her to open the safe before fleeing with an undisclosed amount of money.
The Daily Dispatch reported that an unnamed witness saw the robbers observing staff movements before striking at about 7.15 am.
Kinana says no arrests have yet been made, but the bakkie they were travelling in was found abandoned a kilometre away from the scene.
No shots were fired, and no injuries were reported during the incident.
In an interview with The Daily Dispatch, the general manager for Post Office SA in the Eastern Cape, Nombulelo Ngubane, said that 200 stipends paid on behalf of the Department of Transport to road rangers, as well as a category called “household”, had been affected by the latest robbery.
Also affected were the R350 Covid social relief grant payments for unemployed people.
Ngubane said the Post Office was exploring alternative cashless payments to beneficiaries.
In September, Grocott’s Mail reported that local business owners arrived at work to find their street-facing security cameras stolen.
One business owner, Andre McLean, immediately called Hi-Tec and provided them with footage of someone with their face uncovered, reaching to remove the one camera at 9 pm on Tuesday 14 September.
In total, three cameras were stolen, one off the building at Mac’s Auto and two from the building further up the road on the corner of High Street and Cuyler.
McLean said at the time that he called Hi-Tec because “when somebody removes cameras at night, it’s because they’re planning to do something later. It takes some time to get cameras back up and running; you have to buy new cameras and have them installed.”
He had a hunch that something was planned because “other businesses in our street are more vulnerable, so that’s why I called Hi-Tec. For instance, the Post Office is very busy from the 15th through to the 25th with people collecting money,” McLean said at the time.
