Gauteng MEC for Finance and Economic Development, Lebogang Maile, says government will continue to clamp down on non-compliant spaza shops and food-handling facilities in the province.
The MEC conducted a compliance blitz in Soweto on Monday aimed at inspecting spaza shops and other establishments selling food.
This follows a directive issued by President Cyril Ramaphosa last month, that all spaza shops and food-handling facilities must be registered with their respective municipalities, after a surge in reported cases of foodborne illnesses in the country.
“Government is going to clamp down very hard. We are going to put more pressure [on shop owners] and we are going to put more resources.
“What I can tell you with certainty is that we are taking this process seriously. That’s why we deliberately and consciously decided that we are going for the big guys now and not just the small shops. Government is putting resources to the police, we have inspectors that were here,” he said.
The MEC revealed that during an inspection of a national chain supermarket, rat droppings were found.
“We found rodent waste in one of the tins here and as you can imagine, that’s not good for human consumption. We are not happy…and we are going to come back.
“The inspectors have issued notices and warnings and removed the food. Some of the food is not even labelled. We also found that a lot of unknown products…are also not compliant.
“The focus for the longest of time has been on the spaza shops and we might have dropped the ball a bit on these big shops. We have to focus on them as well because everyone has got a responsibility to keep the standards and to also ensure that the places that they sell food from are hygienic and that people are not exposed to any danger,” he said.
Maile said although government was working hard to rid the country of expired goods and improve food handling services, business owners also bear responsibility to “ensure that they comply with the laws of the land”.
“Most importantly, I think it is unfair and disingenuous for those who run businesses to expect to make profit and not care about the lives of our people. It is selfish and greedy at best.
“With some of the findings [of the spaza shops inspections], they don’t qualify for closure but there are weaknesses that we have raised with them and we have agreed that they are going to attend to them and there will be follow ups by the inspectors.
“If we find that the shops are not in the condition to be operating, we will definitely close them down,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
