Spaza shops implicated in the deaths of children to be closed immediately – Ramaphosa

President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered the immediate closure of the spaza shops implicated in the deaths of six children in Naledi, Soweto last month. 

This was one of the measures he announced on Friday night to grapple with a wave of food-contamination cases affecting mainly young children in recent weeks, including a requirement that all spaza shops and other food handling facilities must be registered within municipalities within 21 days, failing which they will be closed.

“A massive campaign of door-to-door inspection of all spaza shops, tuck shops and other informal traders will be undertaken, starting with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. This will be undertaken by inter-disciplinary inspections teams consisting of the South African Military Health Services, environmental health practitioners, the South African Police Service, the National Consumer Council, labour inspectors and others,” Ramaphosa said in a national address broadcast live on television.

He said since the beginning of September, there had been 890 reported incidents of food-borne illnesses across all provinces, with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal being most affected, while “dozens” of incidents were also reported in Limpopo, Free State and Mpumalanga. 

“Over the last few weeks alone, food-borne illnesses have claimed the lives of at least 22 of our nation’s children,” he added.

The National Institute for Communicable Diseases had established that the deaths of the six children in Naledi, Soweto in October were directly attributed to the organophosphate chemical Terbufos, the president said.

This harmful pesticide should not be sold for general household use, he said, but is nevertheless being “informally sold as a so-called ‘street pesticide’ for domestic use in townships and informal settlements to control rats”. Samples had been taken from 84 spaza shops in the Naledi area and three had evidence of Terbufos. 

As part of the investigations into the Naledi deaths, inspectors confiscated a number of illegal pesticides from spaza shops, and also found instances where food was being stored alongside pesticides and detergents. 

“Even as our investigations are ongoing, it is critical to understand that this is not a problem confined to spaza shops and other informal traders,” Ramaphosa said.

“The unregulated use of restricted pesticides in communities has become a growing problem, with devastating consequences. In many townships another chemical, Aldicarb, and an organophosphate known as Galephirimi are commonly sold by street vendors and hawkers to control rat infestations.”

Aldicarb has been banned for use in South Africa since 2016.

Ramaphosa said there would be an investigation and prosecution of offenders identified in inspections of all food handlers and manufacturers. Non-compliant businesses and shops linked to any poisoning incidents or found to unlawfully stock hazardous chemicals would  be shut down. 

Other interventions would include protecting children from exposure to the harmful substances, which would involve the intervention of the national department of basic education and provincial education departments. 

“By the start of the new school year, the department of basic education and school governing bodies, together with the department of health, will review and update the guidelines for schools on the management of suppliers of foodstuffs to public schools. This will include tuck shops operated at these schools,” Ramaphosa said. 

“This will be complemented by a public education campaign aimed at communities, spaza shops, tuck shops, informal traders and other retailers on health, safety and hygiene regulations, the identification of hazardous products, regulations that apply to hazardous products and legal consequences.”

Last week, the Gauteng department of education banned the sale of food around schools “to safeguard the health and well-being of [our] learners”, and called for schools and school governing bodies to monitor and regulate vendors, tuckshops, and other outlets that sell food to learners. 

Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi said since January, there had been 441 food contamination cases in the province, which resulted in 23 deaths. The majority of these deaths involved children between the ages of six and 10, with the most cases reported in Ekhuruleni. 

Earlier on Friday KwaZulu-Natal premier Thami Ntuli said his government would carry out regular inspections of  spaza shops and monitor borders for illicit food smuggling in response to the cases of food contamination in the province, which have mostly affected learners. 

“The majority have fallen sick in groups after consuming products from the same vendor, creating a link between spaza shops and this food poisoning crisis. Concerns have also been raised regarding the packaging of food,” Ntuli said. 

Ntuli said the provincial government had received a recent report of suspected food poisoning in the Cambana area in uMzumbe in theUgu district, where three children had died and their grandmother was hospitalised.

“Even though postmortem results are yet to confirm the actual cause of death, it is alleged that the victims fell ill and passed away due to food poisoning. The three victims were children aged two, six, and 11 years old,” he said.

This week, 59 children from a primary school in Giyani, Limpopo were also taken to hospital after they “were fed porridge and milk from the school nutrition programme but preliminary reports indicate that they also had fat cakes and sweets,” the Limpopo education department said in a statement on Thursday. 

In his address on Friday, Ramaphosa said another intervention aimed at preventing future outbreaks was a clean up operation by municipalities to grapple with the scourge of rat infestations in townships and informal settlements which has seen residents resort to the use of dangerous chemicals.

“The problem of rat infestation is due in part to poor waste management in several municipalities. Rubbish is not collected regularly, streets are not being cleaned, creating conditions for rats and other pests to thrive,” he said.

“Often, the poorest communities are the worst affected, and often the cheapest remedies that are used are these highly hazardous substances like Terbufos and Aldicarb.”

He said the department of agriculture was also in the process of reviewing and updating all relevant legislation with respect to the regulation and authorisation of agricultural pesticides for use in South Africa.