President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced a sweeping food safety crackdown on spaza shops in South Africa’s townships and informal settlements, as well as tighter regulations for general dealers and all food handling and distribution facilities.
All food handling facilities must be registered within 21 days, and would be inspected to ensure that they met health and food safety requirements, he said in a national broadcast.
“A massive campaign of door-to-door inspection of all spaza shops, tuck shops and other informal traders will be undertaken,” Ramaphosa announced. Spaza shops are small local convenience stores.
The intervention follows the deaths of a number of people, including children, who had purchased food items from spaza shops and street vendors.
Ramaphosa said investigations into the deaths of six children in Naledi in North West province had found that hazardous agricultural pesticides were being stored illegally in spaza shops alongside detergents and food items.
A chip packet found on one of the dead children had traces of a pesticide inside and outside the packet. The pesticides, one banned and the other meant for agricultural use only, are sold illegally in townships for domestic control of rats.
“The problem of rat infestation is due in part to poor waste management in several municipalities. Rubbish is not collected regularly, streets are not being cleaned, creating conditions for rats and other pests to thrive.
“Often, the poorest communities are the worst affected, and often the cheapest remedies that are used are these highly hazardous substances like Terbufos and Aldicarb,” Ramaphosa said.
The government intervention therefore has to address the fact that many municipalities did not have the capacity to inspect businesses and enforce food safety regulations.
Ramaphosa announced that:
- The spaza shops which have been implicated in the deaths of children will be closed immediately.
- All spaza shops and other food handling facilities must be registered within the municipalities in which they operate within 21 days from 15 November 2024. Those failing to do so will be closed.
- Police will be required to investigate, arrest and prosecute offenders.
- Integrated multidisciplinary inspection teams will undertake compliance inspections of food handling facilities, manufacturers, distributors, wholesaler and retailers. This will include spaza shops and general dealers.
- Non-compliant businesses and shops linked to any poisoning incidents or found to unlawfully stock hazardous chemicals will be shut down.
- All registered manufacturers of Terbufos will be inspected to ensure that no products are diverted into the non-agricultural market.
- Regulations and protocols on the traceability, repackaging, destruction and sale of pesticides, insecticides and foodstuffs will be strengthened.
In addition, there will be updated guidelines for schools on the management of suppliers of foodstuffs to schools, and a public education campaign on food safety and dangerous chemicals.
Local municipalities will be required to take urgent action to address the problem of rat infestations by cleaning cities and towns and removing waste. Penalties for non-compliance include criminal prosecution, Ramaphosa said.
Concern about the tight deadline for spaza registration
There are an estimated 150 000 spaza shops in South Africa, and the practicality of registering all of them within three weeks is being questioned.
While Ramaphosa’s plan is good, the timeframe is unrealistic, Rosheda Muller, president of the National Informal Traders Alliance of South Africa, told SABC news.
“It’s going to be impossible, it will probably take more than a year, for all of us to go stand in a queue,” she said.
The Institute of Chartered Entrepreneurs (IoCE) told the Sunday Times the deadline was impractical.
“The organisation said with more than 1 000 spaza shops in Soweto alone and thousands more nationwide, it was unreasonable to expect local authorities, who were already overstretched, to inspect, register and assist businesses within 21 days,” the newspaper reported.
