Public protector Kholeka Gcaleka has identified systemic shortcomings in the regulatory oversight, co-ordination, monitoring and enforcement of food safety measures at spaza shops and school feeding kitchens.
She cited the absence of, or ineffective, monitoring mechanisms for health services through mandatory structures such as district health councils and provincial health councils, as required by the National Health Act, as well as severe human resource shortages within municipal health departments.
The investigation by the public protector’s office comes at the request of the leader of the African Transformation Movement (ATM), Vuyolwethu Zungula, in October 2024. This was due to a spate of deaths and serious injuries attributed to the consumption of expired and decayed food products sold in informal shops, including spaza shops, across the country.
In addition to informal shops, she said evidence so far indicates that most of the public schools in Gauteng with feeding schemes are without proper food preparation areas, dedicated changing facilities for food handlers, and storage of personal clothing items, despite being issued with statutory notices.
“All these limitations are direct contraventions of applicable food handling regulations,” she said.
On the issues of oversight, Gcaleka said statistical evidence indicates that all municipalities in Gauteng have fewer than the recommended number of environmental health practitioners (EHPs), as per guidelines from the World Health Organisation and the National Environmental Health Norms and Standards (NEHNS).
The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) is at a 50% compliance level regarding EHP staffing capacity, while the City of Ekurhuleni and City of Tshwane are at 23% and 21% respectively. Sedibeng and West Rand are viewed as critically understaffed, operating at 16% and 18% apiece.
She said: “All Gauteng metros and district municipalities have an EHP deficit and as such, are not close to WHO and NEHNS requirements.”
The province’s three metros, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane, based on the 2024 and 2025 financial years, also had staff shortages within local economic development (LED) departments, which are central to processing business applications received from spaza shops.
This capacity deficiency within LED units has resulted in cases of possible business fronting and non-compliance with tax statutory obligations by spaza shop owners.
Gcaleka also said the ongoing investigation by her office was showing up possible cases of corruption, fraud and false declarations involving South African citizens allegedly assisting undocumented foreigners to operate businesses and access the Spaza Shop Support Fund (SSSF).
The demographics within the three Gauteng metros indicate that a significantly higher number of business applications to operate spaza shops are received from foreigners compared to locals.
Existing shops are also skewed towards being run by immigrants.
“There are approximately 12,737 operational spaza shops within three Gauteng metros. About 7,071 of the total spaza shops are operated by foreign nationals, which equates to 56% of spaza in the hands of foreign nationals, which further reinforces the finding that the spaza shop industry in the country is rapidly being dominated and/or taken over by foreign nationals, mainly Ethiopians, Somalians and Bangladeshis, as supported by a master list verified by the department of home affairs and handed over to our investigation team by the City of Tshwane,” she said.
Gcaleka has recommended that the Gauteng premier’s office take appropriate measures, in collaboration with the municipalities, to address the constraints and strengthen compliance, safety monitoring and inspection capacity.
TimesLIVE
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