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

Deputy Minister of Small Business Development, Jane Sithole, has called on South Africans to reclaim the township economy, which is currently in the hands of foreign nationals.

Sithole was commenting about the rampant incidents in which about 300 children were hospitalised, while others died after they allegedly ate snacks purchased from the reportedly unregulated foreign-owned spaza shops that are situated in the country’s townships and rural areas.

South Africans told to open own spaza shops

In an interview with The Citizen, Sithole called on the communities not to attack the owners of the shops, but to rather approach her department, which is ready to assist them to start their own shops. She added that these shops will be regulated and sell things that will not pose a danger to the lives of the children and the community at large.

“The spaza shop is a South African concept and now it has been hijacked because the locals have stopped doing this kind of business. Remember our parents and grandmothers and fathers had been owning the shops and doing other informal trading, but we have dropped the ball, hence now we are renting out our properties to other people to do the same business.

“We are appealing to the locals to take back the ownership of the shops and by doing so they will be reclaiming the township economy,” said Sithole.

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Entrepreneurship programmes

Sithole said the department would create more awareness about the government entrepreneurship programmes aimed at educating locals how to start and manage a tuckshop.

She said currently there is a programme called the Spaza Shop Support Scheme which has already helped open 2 700 shops throughout the country.

She, however, conceded that the established shops were a drop in the ocean compared to those owned by foreign nationals.

“Hence, I stated that the support scheme is not a new thing, we are now revitalising it and going to use it to help our people take back the township economy. We are going to assist with the preparation and the running of the business.

“People will be assisted and trained on how to run a successful shop that sells products that are suitable for human consumption. As the department we are ready so people must visit offices and make applications. As soon as the application is successful we then start to assist them.”

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The deputy minister lambasted the foreign national owned tuck shops and said it was about time the government took serious action to stop them as they were putting the lives of the communities in danger.

She added that the government had a tendency to react when issues happened but when it temporarily stopped, the action also stopped.

“The government must be pushed until these shops selling expired food that places our children and communities’ lives in danger are permanently stopped.”

‘I ran out of business’

Valley Mashego from Etawatwa near Benoni, Ekurhuleni, welcomed the deputy minister’s call and said his tuckshop, which he had owned for more than five years, “was forced to shut down after the invasion of foreign-owned shops which are dominating in our area”.

“I ran out of business because people were no longer supporting me, preferring to buy from the two adjacent shops owned by Ethiopian nationals,” he said.

Mashego said he would apply for assistance as the deputy minister suggested and go back to business again.

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