Abigail Sibeko, Mabuya Park, writes:
I was shocked by the video of a housewife on social media showing the strange fake-bread she bought from a local spaza shop in her area.
As consumers, we need to be protected by law from unscrupulous businesses that refuse to conform to local health standards.
My suggestion is that all spaza shops, regardless of who owns the shop, must undergo regular health and safety checks upon which they can be graded and certificated accordingly to ensure the foodstuff sold to consumers are up to quality standards.
I say this because the bread issue is actually just one of the many common disturbing reports about consumers buying foodstuff or medicine from spaza shops and then falling ill afterwards.
Although there are no records of any deaths, some people believe that since many of the consumers who purchase food and medicine from informal spaza shops are migrants, many simply return to their rural homelands where most of them fall sick and die.
All municipalities will have to put a monitoring system in place in order to help create awareness about the rights of the consumer. Firstly, the municipality health inspectors must get the ball rolling by checking safety and health standards.
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