Cape Town - Multiple cases of food poisoning prompted various organisations to stage a peaceful march, urging the government to close down spaza shops in order to safeguard public health.
They also called for the deportation of foreigners, especially those who own businesses.
The handful of marchers walked about 1.8km from their meeting point at Sandelhout Street to the Delft Civic Centre to hand over a memorandum of grievances.
Shakila Rahman, Head of Health of uMkhonto Wesizwe Party said they marched because of food poisoning and contamination of food due to expired food that is being allegedly sold by some spazas, retail, wholesale, Facebook Marketplace and manufacturing businesses.
She explained to City officials that the Government of National Unity (GNU) is accountable for the health, safety and wellbeing of every individual person in the country and is responsible for everyone who was and still is critically ill in hospital and who has passed away due to food poisoning and food contamination.
The group demands the government to be held accountable for all the poisonings.
“We demand more stringent laws for spaza, retail, wholesale, Facebook marketplace and manufacturing food businesses.
“We demand that the government of national unity instruct environment health practitioners to do their jobs properly with very stringent inspections in every spaza.
“We demand that all expired food and contaminated food be confiscated and the food business owners fined a huge sum of money. We demand that all these measures must be put in place as a matter of urgency with immediate effect as food poisoning is detrimental to the lives of all our people. Our people have died and are critically ill in hospital due to food poisoning and this is unacceptable.
Zandile Nela, #Abahambe National Civic Movement said they want foreigners out of the country.
“We are anti-foreign nations, we don’t want them in this country. It doesn’t matter whether they have papers or not, they must all go!
“What we understand is that the local businesses belong to South Africans. We are saying no to foreigners, our economy is dying, they don’t pay taxes, and they take our money to their countries.”
Amakroti esizwe (Warriors of the nation) Nicholas Koyana said: “We are in trouble as a country, it seems like we have no government and we have to deal with this on our own.
“We pay taxes but nothing is done to resolve this. Young children are dying, and it looks like the government doesn’t care.
“All foreigners must go even if they are priests or imams, they must also go.”
They have given the City seven working days to respond to them.
On Wednesday an inspection of the premises, which turned out to be a makeshift butchery attached to a residential property, found that sausage was being processed and packaged in unsanitary conditions, which could pose a significant health risk to consumers.
Mayco member for Community Services and Health Patricia van der Ross, said Environmental Health Practitioners took meat samples from the premises for chemical analysis to test the levels and type of additives in the sausage.
“It is worth noting that the premises in question is situated in a residential area. It is not listed nor identified as a business, and if not for the whistle-blower, our EHPs would not have had cause to conduct an inspection.
“We are also aware of the allegation that dog food was being used to produce the sausage – contrary to footage circulating on social media, our EHPs found no evidence of dog food”.
mandilakhe.tshwete@inl.co.za