Buffalo City mayor urges foreign spaza owners to comply with SA laws

Following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call that all non-complying spaza shops be closed, Buffalo City Metro (BCM) Executive Mayor Princess Faku conducted a bilateral meeting on Monday.

The meeting took place in East London with 40 foreign business leaders, including Somalians, Ethiopians, Bangladesh and Pakistan shop owners, gathered to discuss recent developments affecting spaza shops.

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Stakeholders collaborate for compliance

Faku said the metro would be conducting workshops to educate about 2000 spaza owners on the requirements needed from them to operate, stated the municipality,

Various stakeholders were invited to partake in the workshop by the BCM, including the South African Police Service (Saps), Home Affairs Immigration, and South African Revenue Service (Sars).

“The municipality also invited various departments from the institution, which include Municipality Health Services, Spatial Planning, Business Licensing (LED),” it said.

Furthermore, Faku said that most spaza owners did not have valid licenses to operate their businesses.

“We discovered that most of these shop owners don’t have papers to operate these spaza shops, nor do they have the correct identification documents to be in the city.

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Educating shop owners on by-laws

“As South Africans, lives are very important as per the constitution of our land, which is the supreme law, and they also agree with that,” she said.

Additionally, Faku said is a serious need to identify the primary producers, particularly those who supply goods to spaza shops to ensure adherence to food sales regulations.

“We guided them through our health department’s regulations, municipal by-laws and compliance requirements for business operations,” she concluded.

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