By Lerato Makola

Gauteng Finance and Economic Development Member of Executive Counsil, Lebogang Maile briefed the media in Sandton, Johannesburg on Sunday. This comes in the wake of six children dying in Soweto after consuming suspected contaminated snacks they allegedly bought from a spaza shop.

Locals have accused foreign national spaza shop owners in townships of selling expired food. This has led to incidents of looting resulting in many spaza shops being shut down in the Vaal and Naledi in Soweto.

Gauteng province has reported 207 cases of food poisoning between February and September, this year.

Maile has called on the national government to take the lead in tackling this phenomenon.

“While the provincial government awaits official autopsies to gain a clearer understanding of what precisely is killing and making children sick in our townships after they consume products from foreign-owned enterprises. We are also engaging with public health experts to understand the potential magnitude of the problem.”

Maile says it is justifiable that local spaza shop owners are frustrated by the inability to expand their businesses due to structural constraints.

“It is inevitable under such circumstances that local spaza shop owners are frustrated by being unable to thrive in their own communities especially as the factors behind their inability to thrive are down to the structural constraints rather than personal weaknesses. these constraints include a cost of living challenge that has eroded disposable income for local households, lack of access to credit and funding instruments for small and macro enterprises from major funding institutions as well as lack of access to markets.”

He’s urged community members not to take the law into their own hands. “It is the law, and only the law that can determine who is to be held accountable for the deaths and hospitalisations of children. taking the law into our own hands does not allow for solutions or closure and both are needed in order to ensure that the deaths of so many children are not in vain. These deaths must compel the re-visiting of legislation and the unity of communities to rebuild.”

Maile will visit affected communities in Boipatong in the Vaal and Naledi in Soweto on Monday.

--SABC--