Scores of children have lost their lives in South Africa after eating snacks sold by backyard spaza shops and school vendors. Public speculation is running wild, with some holding foreigners who run many of the stores responsible. But who should ultimately answer over the contaminated food killing South Africans?
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00:00Scores of children have lost their lives due to food poisoning in South Africa in recent years.
00:05In Gauteng province alone, 23 child fatalities and 441 cases of suspected food poisoning
00:13have been reported since the start of the year, yet no one has taken responsibility.
00:19Public speculation is meanwhile running wild as authorities slowly intervene,
00:24and foreign nationals from other parts of Africa are front and centre of the blame game.
00:30There are reports of pesticides found in snacks sold by the so-called spaza shops
00:36and vendors at schools. Some locals are accusing foreign spaza operators
00:41of knowingly selling expired foods to children. Others say South Africans are trying to frame
00:49foreigners in order to have them pushed out of the country. Welcome to the flip side.
00:55South Africa is known to have one of the best food labelling and food safety regimes in Africa.
01:02So how is it possible that fatalities linked to food can happen?
01:08But more importantly, who is ultimately responsible for food safety?
01:13In South Africa, the responsibility of food safety and consumer protection
01:20lies firstly with the government, manufacturers, retailers or sellers or resellers. And then you
01:27have key legislation that deals specifically with the obligations of responsibilities of individuals.
01:35It is true that many Zimbabweans, Somalis and Nigerians
01:39run spaza shops and informal vendors in South Africa. And it's also true that most of the
01:45children in the country consume snacks sold by spazas and vendors. But why focus on foreign
01:51shop owners when the responsibility for public health protection lies with the South African
01:58government? My view is that we have an issue of negligence in regulatory oversight. Why am I
02:05saying it is negligence? Because when the first cases started, there should have been, you know,
02:13sort of this thing within the minds of those that are in government or that are responsible for
02:19implementing bylaws if the issue of a locality, provincial legislation, national legislation to
02:24say, hang on, we need to go in and see what is happening. A parliamentary committee has recommended
02:31a ban on foreign ownership of spaza shops and the introduction of a register of people who sell
02:38snacks at schools. Gauteng province now has tightened bylaws that even make provision for
02:45the deportation of foreign shop owners who violate food safety standards. But will that solve the
02:51problem for consumers? If they go, the government needs to give us a chance of subsidizing the black
02:59people or the black community to run all these spaza shops and get rid of these foreign
03:07nationals to come and make business into our country. We also are worried about an intent to
03:15page out migrant spaza shop owners and we are hoping that during the stage where regulations
03:24are being implemented, the target should not be to page out but to
03:28fix the health and safety of consumers. And that's the flip side.