Berbice: According to the secretary of the Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club, Hilbert Foster, bandits cleared out almost $2 million worth of items for charity after raiding the facility’s storage area.
Foster said that he had secured the club’s office situated in one of three pavilions in the Area ‘H’ Rose Hall ground on Friday, but on Saturday morning, he and some club members spent sometime at the office and then left with everything appearing to be normal.
However, there was someone in the ground acting in a suspicious manner, and when asked what his business was, the person left the facility. Foster said he then secured the facility again and left as there was no activity planned for the weekend.
It was only on Monday when Foster was about to make a donation of clothing to an individual he discovered the storage area above his office in the pavilion was burglarised.
“So we went upstairs to hand over the stuff to them, some clothing… and to our shock 90 percent of the stuff that we had stored upstairs disappeared.”
Foster said it was discovered that the louvers from a set of windows on the southern section of the building were removed, and from the western section of the building as well. The stolen items included donations from agencies for the clubs’ annual award ceremony, namely footwear, Hanes t-shirts, about $400,000 worth of toys stored up for Christmas, a quantity of footballs, basketballs, volleyballs, hygiene kits, educational packages among many other items.
The thieves even opened several bails of clothing, chose what they wanted and left the rest behind. A case of expired Malta left back from a party since 2009 was not spared by the thieves, who made sure all were used up. The police showed up to investigate the matter, and the area broken into was then secured by wooden bars, before nightfall on Monday.
Foster said as he approached the club on Tuesday morning, he raised his eyes to the area which was sealed off and to his dismay, the wooden bars were broken and when he entered, some toys, long booths and other items were missing.
“The thing gat me so depressed, I don’t want to stay up and look around up there,” he said.
The robbery is expected to stall the projects planned by the club this year, and would affect the annual award ceremony set for April 22. At this event, usually over $2.5 million worth in items are usually handed out. The annual tribute to teachers is also in limbo as all the tokens have been stolen. The gifts were given by students from the Lower Corentyne Secondary School.
Foster feels that the thieves may have been staking out the storage area for a few weeks prior to committing the robberies. He said there is a possibility that the robbers may have entered the building and removed items already, but no one detected that until Monday.
The thieves apparently used a long 4×4 beam to lean against the wall to get access to the window. It is suspected that they threw the items through the windows of the western side of the building from where it was removed. They also tried to enter another pavilion where the beam was left braced to the wall.
Last week in that same pavilion, someone tried to enter the kitchen; however Foster and his staff cleared out about half a million dollars worth of utensils, and secured it in another area.
Foster is bitter with the Rose Hall Town Council for not providing security for the ground which is the municipality’s property, despite numerous requests. He is contending that the club upkeeps the ground and pays about $300,000 yearly in light and water bills. According to Foster, it is unfair for the club to pay for security of the multimillion dollar facility as its finances are already stretched.
Thieves for the past year have been wreaking havoc on facilities in the Area H ground when night falls, Foster said.
“Let me be frank, the club already provide the water bill, we do the electricity bill, remember this club is a sports club and we just finish how much money to repair this place… we gotta find money now to grill the place… it will be virtually impossible for us with huge overhead expense to provide security.”
He contends that the municipality attracts revenue from the ground, but is reluctant to help. Foster said he feels that disgruntled footballers who use the ground could very well be involved on the break in. However, no arrests have been made.
