NTANDO MAKHUBU
As cases of expired, sub-standard food circulating in townships and schools continue, and as mainly children fall sick and die, more voices have been added to calls for tighter regulations on foreign operations in communities.
Among them has been the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa (Contralesa), who, after being called upon to comment, over the weekend said there needed to be closer monitoring of operations run by the mostly foreign shopkeepers.
Contralesa resident Kgosi Lameck Mokoena said there was an urgent need for both health inspectors and the country’s law enforcement to act decisively if the scourge was to end.
“They must increase inspection and monitoring of the outlets, found mainly in townships, to address this worrying incident of children falling ill after consuming food items purchased from unregistered spaza shops.”
This, the organisation said, was to ensure the lives of South Africans, especially those who depended on township outlets for their grocery, were safe.
They stressed the need for proactive measures to be taken by those in power, to make sure the young, who bought from foreigners to and from school or when they needed an affordable snack, and adults, too, while more resilient, nevertheless also suffered the consequences when they fell sick, were protected.
“There is a need for robust health inspections and vigilant enforcement of safety regulations in these establishments,” said Mokoena.
Cases of children falling sick in their numbers, in and out of the classroom and at home, have led to a furore around their production, and have seen municipalities and community-based organisations mobilise and go into inspection mode, to reveal both unhygienic food preparation conditions and unsafe storage areas from where the food is sold.
Expired goods have also been uncovered, where foreign nationals were said to be selling food way past the best use date, and, in other cases, where they collected from food and snacks that were in the waste areas, to recycle and repackage and sell.
In Tshwane and other areas, officials found that the shop owners slept in the same area that they sold from, and, in one instance, used the packaged foods as beds during the night.
In other cases children have died after consuming what they allegedly bought from the spaza shops, known as “abo my friend”, while other fell sick, with classes full of young people being admitted into hospitals for adversely reacting to what they said they had bought from the foreign-owned shops.
In another school a class full of children were captured on video undressing, as they scratched their bodies, while in another, they hallucinated, threw up and raised an alarm, in reaction.
Contralesa called for stringent measures to be taken when the foreign-owned shops were allowed to operate, and for constant monitoring both of the products sold and in environment in which they are prepared, by those in the municipality and the police.
They responded after they were called upon on social media, with one user saying: “You should be on a mission get rid of these people. You’re failing in your duty.”
Another asked why the pressure group of traditional leaders was silent on the matter, saying: “Contralesa has been so silent about this spaza shops run by aliens killing the nation.
“Almost all shops in the rural/traditional areas run by aliens, especially EC. Chiefs and isibondas give the permission.”
In Tshwane, a multidisciplinary team comprising of the metro’s Health Department, SAPS, Home Affairs’ Immigration Section and Correctional Services conducted a joint special operation, which focused on business and health compliance by spaza shops and wholesalers in Temba, Hammanskraal.
Fines totalling an amount of R63 000 were issued over the three-day operation to different non-compliant spaza shops. ActionSA also conducted a similar inspection.
According to Food legislation in South Africa, no one is allowed to store, transport, display, prepare or sell any food without a Certificate of Acceptability Regulation R638.
The operation included health inspectors who verified the validity of operational licenses and adherence to municipal by-laws, hygienic handling of food on the premises, adequate protection of food and products against spoilage and contamination.
Tshwane advised residents to seek information and be able to differentiate between expiry, use by, and sell-by dates to ensure that they do not purchase or consume spoiled products.
Pretoria News