By Johnathan Paoli
Parliament’s economic development and trade committee has criticised the government for what it says is conflicting messaging concerning the spaza shop emergency.
Committee chair Sonja Boshoff said how the issue was being communicated publicly did not give confidence that the fatalities of South African children were being taken seriously.
“While the issue of young children dying or taking ill after eating snacks is a serious matter, we see the province of Gauteng moving with speed on developing policies on something they seem not to understand fully,” Boshoff said.
She said the matter was a national issue and that national departments should coordinate the response strategy.
Boshoff called out the motivations of individual officials commenting on the issue, instead of a united front on the crisis.
“Utterances by individual leaders are actually a threat and a sign that nothing meaningful is being done,” Boshoff said.
The chair said the challenge had been manifesting for some time and that the Small Business Development Department was responsible for registering spaza shop ownership.
Additionally, she said the national Health Department as well as the South African Bureau of Standards were responsible for the certification and quality assurance of consumables and packaging materials.
She stressed the need for the national sphere to address the situation in light of growing xenophobic tensions.
“We urge that the national government take full responsibility for this development, which has reached crisis proportions. The way the debate is going now in some townships, the country is headed for a confrontation with foreign nationals,” Boshoff said.
She said the Government of National Unity has to move in speed and ensure it has a finger on the pulse of this chaos.
“If the issue is ownership, let that be resolved, but if it concerns production recklessness, the government has agencies to deal with that too,” Boshoff said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last week that he had instructed various ministers to look into food contamination at spaza shops and was expected to make a pronouncement on it soon.
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