Food poisoning: Victims’ families say government has done nothing

While government officials scramble to address rising illnesses and deaths linked to suspected food poisoning across the country, the Gauteng family of the latest victim has slammed government’s failure to thoroughly inspect spaza shops.

Ten-year-old Lesedi Maaboyi, died in after allegedly consuming snacks bought from a spaza shop in Alexandra over the weekend.

‘Nothing has changed’

Joshua Maaboyi, the father of Lesedi, said there was still no permanent solution in sight for the recent tragedies.

“Nothing has changed from what they said. It feels like we’re going in circles. They came, offered condolences, and that was it. Maybe after a few days they will be somewhere else doing the same thing,” Maaboyi said after the visit of Gauteng MEC for finance, Lebogang Maile.

The 10 year old, who had shared the snacks with her mother and brother, became ill after eating them and was pronounced dead at hospital.

Her mother and six-year-old brother remained in a stable condition at Edenvale Hospital.

“It feels like we’re going nowhere because there’s no real change. The government should focus on proper inspections of these shops.

“Instead of offering condolences, they should invest more effort into inspections,” he added.

Maile, visited the family yesterday amid tensions in the area, with residents demanding action against the shop owner.

Maile called for a possible state of emergency in response to the recent surge in food-borne illnesses in the province.

During the visit, Maile acknowledged that while inspections targeting spaza shops had begun and a task team had been established, these efforts needed to be more forceful.

“We urge those responsible for inspections to be more aggressive, faster, and to cover more areas. Inspections are happening, but not enough is being done. We need to put more pressure on them,” he said.

Meanwhile, in Ekurhuleni, two more children, six-year-old Owami and nine-year-old Hope Xaba, reportedly died of food poisoning at their home last week.

ALSO READ: Government will help South Africans get their own spaza shops – deputy minister

CoJ says problem due to limited health inspectors

Johannesburg speaker Nobuhle Mthembu said the city’s problem was due to limited health inspectors and added that urgent action was needed.

She said the city council would prioritise the recent developments in the next council sitting this month.

“The City of Joburg is big, with 135 wards. Alexandra alone is very big. There are countless spaza shops popping up and we don’t even know about some of them,” she said.

“But we have committed that we should prioritise this issue. We need our ward and PR councillors to help gather data on shop owners, whether they have proper permits or not. That way, when we sit in council, we’ll have the way forward.”

Maile conceded government was urgently looking into the whole value chain behind the operations of the spaza shops.

“That’s why the inspectors, whenever they find these poisonous foods, we have to get a response and accountability from shop owners on where they bought these goods, so that we are able to deal with the root cause and not deal with the results.”

ALSO READ: Food poisionings a ‘crime against humanity’: Gauteng MEC Maile calls for state of emergency