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Government officials inspecting food at a shop in Diepkloof, Soweto.
Officials from the Gauteng provincial government and the City of Johannesburg are conducting raids on spaza shops in Diepkloof in Soweto on Tuesday afternoon.
Large quantities of expired goods including poorly labelled ones have been seized.
The raids are being conducted to check for compliance with health, safety and consumer protection standards. This follows the death of two children in the area last week from foodborne illnesses.
MEC @NkomoNomantu lead the team as they conducted shop inspections in Diepkloof, Soweto, with a specific focus on the compliance of local spaza shops and supermarkets to ensure that they comply with health, safety and acceptable consumer protection standards… pic.twitter.com/t85UDf2ecN
— Gauteng Health (@GautengHealth) November 26, 2024
Health inspectors
Gauteng Health MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko says plans are underway to increase the number of environmental health inspectors to check for compliance with safety and health standards at spaza shops.
“It’s going to be quite good now that as the government we are working together because we will definitely achieve what we want to achieve as the citizens of the province. But this thing is unfair, we don’t have health and environmental officials that are enough in the municipality and even in the province, because of the size of spaza shops that we have in our communities. Just Mamelodi alone, we’ve got more than 800. So, with the capacity that we have at the province and at the municipality, it’s not going to be possible. But we are working on a plan of filling up that capacity so that we have enough personnel.”
Some residents have welcomed the raids.
“I feel so proud, I feel happy. It seems like we have support for our kids who are here and the kids who are no longer with us. And I say don’t just stop here. Go somewhere else, we have so many spaza shops that are selling here,” says one of the residents.
Another resident adds, “Some kids are dead. We buried them on Sunday. So, this is not right, as parents, it’s so painful. So let them go, we need our country.”
Addressing the nation two weeks ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced measures to be put in place to deal with spaza shops that do not comply with the law:
