WATCH | Ramaphosa’s 21-day ultimatum for spaza shops sparks political reactions

Spaza Shops

Cape Town — South African political parties have responded to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of large-scale inspection of spaza shops following the rising cases of food poisoning cases.

In an address to the nation, Ramaphosa said the shops that were implicated in the deaths of the children were ordered to close immediately, and forced to register themselves within 21 days. He also condemned the use of pesticides in certain food goods.

“Any shop that is not registered within 21 days and does not meet all health standards and requirements will be closed,” he said.

While many South African citizens have been outraged by the rising food poisoning cases, certain political parties have also responded to Ramaphosa’s announcement, including the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ActionSA.

In a statement, the DA condemned the death of 22 children due to foodborne illnesses and said dealing with the situation is the first step in addressing the issue.

“In particular, the DA supports the call to conduct door-to-door inspections of all spaza shops, to ensure that products sold to consumers, and the facilities themselves, meet all health and safety standards,” the DA’s Willie Aucamp said.

Aucamo expressed concern that there are sufficient resources available to meet the 21-day deadline to register the shops. He urged the Presidency to engage with Provincial governments to increase the number of employed Environmental Health Practitioners (EHP). A failure to address the shortfall may result in a recurrence of the current situation.

“We agree with the President’s assessment that poor service delivery in certain parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal may have added to this situation, due to unclean and unhygienic environments which become a haven for rats and other pests,” Aucamp added.

The DA also said spaza shops also provide service to consumers in South Africa and they welcomed the call to register all shops.

“The DA in the Government of National Unity (GNU) will ensure we do all we can to assist efforts to overcome the current crisis, and that there is no recurrence of these tragic events.,” he added.

ActionSA’s Lerato Ngobeni was disappointed with Ramaphosa’s announcement and said his speech was hollow and did not actually address the issue of who runs the shops, and what gets sold, Newzroom Afrika reported.

“I’ve never seen people or a country that has to beg its government to prioritise them. We have an elephant in the room that is talking about illegality. These spaza shops are illegal, there are illegal foreign nationals who are running these spaza shops,” Ngobeni said.

She said there needed to be provisos as to who should be allowed to run spaza shops, but did not rule out that foreign nationals could run spaza shops.

She said it is important also to know where the poison found in some food items comes from.

“I would like to know and I think South Africa would like to know who the manufacturers of these pesticides are, how is it that they can dispense these pesticides and how is it that these pesticides are hitting the streets,” she said.

She said Alexandra is one community that has had rat problems for years and said Ramaphosa’s speech was “reactive” and “late”.

She added that it was not possible to solve a problem if we do not know where it comes from and reiterated that those in power need to be held responsible for these issues.

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Compiled by Matthew Petersen

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