Mysterious Fire Renders Over 500 Jobless As JungleNut Factory Is Reduced To Ashes.

Head of HR Jungle Group Holdings Joseph Murigi showing some of the damages caused by the Saturday night infernal.

The morning after a huge fire gutted a factory in Thika, about 500 people are at the risk of losing their only source of livelihood.  

Property worth millions of shillings was reduced to ashes on Saturday night after an infernal razed down a mattress factory belonging to Jungle Group Holdings whose CEO, Patrick Wainaina (Wa Jungle), is an aspiring candidate for the 2017 Thika Town Constituency seat.  

According to the company’s Head of Human Resource and Administration Mr. Joseph Murigi, the fire incident was reported at around 11pm after the personnel guarding the gates noticed some huge flames from the direction of the mattress department and alerted their seniors who immediately called the fire brigade.

“There were no workers in the department as there was no one working nightshift. Some people noted some fire and alerted us immediately. I would like to thank the county government and ICT fire department as well as neighbours around this place for the quick response they took to contain the fire. Otherwise, without them, things would have been worse than this,” said Murigi.

Murigi said that about 500 out of their over 2,500 workforce were directly affected by the fire, a matter that would mean that a good number of them would have to make do without some source of livelihood before things were restore back to normalcy.

“The loss incurred is enormous, running in millions, notwithstanding the number of people whose jobs are now on the line as a result of this fire,” he said.

He said that they were yet to establish the real cause of the infernal but the relevant authorities had already kicked off the investigations and it was just a matter of time before the truth was unveiled. He therefore called on the members of public as well as their staff to calm down and avoid any form of speculations.

Dominic Macharia is one man who is directly affected by the calamity. He works in the department and was quite emotional as he narrated what they as employees are going through at the moment.

“I am short of words considering the uncertainty of our jobs. We don’t know what will happen after this as it may take longer than we expect. We are heading for the Christmas festivities and in January we are expected to raise money to pay for our children’s school fees. Where will we get the money to pay our bills? We are just praying to God to do something to restore back this company to where it was. Jungle Group Holdings is a source of living to so many people,” said Macharia.

Macharia added that emotions were so high last night that a number of those employees who managed to come at the scene fainted in despair as they watched their only source of livelihood go down to ashes.

The state of the affected building was dire as it was apparent that a section of it has to be brought down before it can be reconstructed.

Dominic Macharia, an employee of the company expresses his shock and fears after the incident.

Efforts to get a comprehensive response from the CEO Mr. Wainaina were not very fruitful as he was in shock. Though he said that he was not in a state to talk, he replied our call with a text message that said; “As many of you are aware, a section of JungleNut factory caught fire at around 11pm last night but we managed to contain the fire through concerted efforts of different stakeholders. Although there was extensive destruction of property, I am grateful to report that no one was injured. Glory be to God. This just makes us stronger, we will be back in production soon. We will keep creating jobs even when satan wants to destroy them. Let’s keep praying coz WWJ is a winner… we are heads not tails! God Bless us all. God Bless Thika.”

Sources privy to our news team said that they were not ruling out any foul play and political motives behind the fire incident. They pointed an accusing finger to a particular insider of one of the Thika Town Constituency 2017 candidates who had been spotted on diverse dates driving towards the premises and taking photos of the property. According to them, the police should not ignore this line of thought in their investigations.