Parents, teachers, and learners must speak with a united voice and drive home the message to kids: stop buying snacks from local spaza shops.
Parents must not give money to their children without giving them strict messages not to buy snacks. It has been months since children started getting sick and some losing their lives because of food poisoning found in spaza shops snacks. To have children still getting sick shows a lack of proper messaging by parents and teachers towards children.
The Department of Education should have run an awareness campaign to ensure no child buys any snacks from spaza shops. Yes, they have removed vendors on school premises, however, this is not enough. The government’s tame approach to this further exposes unsuspecting children to danger or even death. This is a national crisis and should be treated as such.
But if we have a president who says “Foreign spaza shop owners must register their shops” as a solution to the problem, then we are doomed. How stupid do you have to be to realize that registration of spaza shops is not a problem no it is a solution. The spaza shop may or may not be registered it does not matter, kids die because of the goods from these shops, registered or not.
The police have cracked down on the illegal factories where these snacks are manufactured, which is good. Even though it will not stop the continuation of making these products and sold in spaza shops. And here is why.
A few years back I decided to do my independent investigation just out of curiosity and also because I am a health fanatic therefore I watch closely what I consume. I remember buying milk and cold drinks that were suspect from my local spaza shop owned by a Bangladeshi International. A few times I would open the milk branded with a local household brand, but upon opening the milk I noticed that the seal underneath the lid was not there. I started investigating and confronting Shaun about this. Compared to the milk I purchased from the well-known retailers I conclude that the milk I bought from the spaza shop was not milk, and so were the eggs which I often disposed of. I ended up buying fruits, toppers biscuits from there.
I was a high spender, so he needed my money, I needed the truth, he admitted that some products are not original. This is when I started following closely how they operated.
A huge network and syndicate is governing the operation of the spaza shops. This network owns these illegal factories and spaza shop owners have to stock 90% of their goods from there. This network also regulates and finances the spaza shops, this is why they will build structures on the landlord’s property. The amounts spent on building a spaza shop range from ten thousand to a hundred thousand rands or more, the landlord inherits the structure when the spaza shop moves or stops operating.
One of the information I gathered is that they do not work with the local people because they do not want to risk exposing some of their secrets which includes financing military groups. Spaza shops do not have bank accounts, at least from my investigation, owners of spaza shops do not have bank accounts. They avoid paper trail by all means necessary. The card machines used may be linked to the network or an individual as a front.
There are many networks or bodies which the spaza shops are affiliated with and they are rivals. They use local unemployed youth to destabilize and intimidate the competition. Police are involved and they take protection fees. So it is not like the government is taken by surprise here, the government knows everything. Municipality food inspectors frequented the spaza shops that I was investigating, they extorted lots of money just like the police, allowing expired goods and snacks to be sold to the public. The spaza shop owner that I was investigating undercover complained about the large money he paid to the police and inspectors. So the government is as guilty and should be charged for the murder and attempted murder of these children.
Now back to the investigation findings.
Have you ever wondered why it was so easy for foreign spaza shop owners to just erect a spaza shop and start trading? Part of my observation was that the network installs the spaza shop for you, this is when they give you the money (loan)and stock to start trading. For the first few months or years, you work for them, until all is paid back then you have to multiply the number of spaza shops you own to create space for the influx of other foreign nationals coming into the country legally or otherwise. The gentleman I investigated had all his papers in order but relied on locals to jump through the loops to fulfill the By-Laws’ paperwork demands of trading. He told me that there are a lot of other shop owners doing this and that the locals are making a lot of money through it.
My investigation had to abruptly stop because I was getting in too deep alone with no backup, but it gets very dark and evil very quickly. Most of these men are active militants or ex-militants from their countries. South Africans are just sitting ducks, something huge will awaken them. Food poisoning is just the tip of the iceberg.
Picture Credits (Veli Nhlapho/Times Live, The Citizen/Michel Bega) (I do not own any of the images used)