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The Chairperson of the Select Committee on Economic Development and Trade, Ms Sonja Boshoff, has noted with concern the conflicting messages around the spaza shops crisis. She said how the spaza shops issue was being communicated publicly did not give confidence that the deaths of our children were being taken seriously.
 
Ms Bosshoff said: “The communication is so uncoordinated and does not inspire confidence. 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. The matter is a national issue. The national departments should coordinate the response strategy. Utterances by individual leaders are actually a threat and a sign that nothing meaningful is being done.”
 
In October this year, 12 learners reportedly died in Gauteng after they had consumed snacks bought from spaza shops that are owned by foreign nationals. Over 200 have taken ill across the provinces of the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and the Eastern Cape.
 
Ms Boshoff said the challenge had been manifesting for some time and that the Department of Small Business Development was responsible for registering spaza shop ownership. However, the National Department of Health and the SA Bureau of Standards were responsible for the certification and quality assurance of consumables and packaging materials.
“We urge that the national government take full responsibility for this development, which has reached crisis proportion. The way the debate is going now in some townships, the country is headed for a confrontation with foreign nationals.”
 
Ms Boshoff said it would be unfortunate if the debate turned into an excuse to commit xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals. “If the issue is ownership, let that be resolved, but if it concerns production recklessness, the government has agencies to deal with that too. The government of national unity has to move in with speed and ensure it has a finger on the pulse of this chaos,” said Ms Boshoff.

Issued by the Parliamentary Communication Services on behalf of the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Economic Development and Trade, Sonja Boshoff