Umzumbe Municipality raids Mtwalume spaza shops
Umzumbe Municipality mayor Bongani Nyuswa said the recent outbreak forced them to implement a full-scale programme to raid and inspect spaza shops within the municipality.
Raiding spaza shops in Mtwalume was Umzumbe Municipality’s mission on Tuesday last week.
This comes after several cases of alleged food poisoning related to learners at Bongucele Secondary School in Umzumbe a week prior.
Recently, seven Bongucele learners were hospitalised after they fell sick after allegedly eating chips from a local vendor.
Umzumbe’s mayor, Bongani Nyuswa, said the recent incident forced them to implement a full-scale programme to inspect spaza shops within the municipality.
“The principal of Bongucele recently told us that the learners are back in school and are busy with their exams. This is why we needed to intensify this raiding programme,” he said.
During the raids, Umzumbe municipal officials were accompanied by representatives of the Department of Home Affairs, members of the Saps and the KZN Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs.
After inspecting a fourth spaza shop, Nyuswa told Fever they found expired products on sale, adding that others did not have manufacturing dates.
“We can’t stop now, we will continue with this programme. The aim is to protect our children and communities from this scourge of food poisoning. Doing these raids with other government departments means there will be consequences for those found to be breaking the law,” he said.
Umzumbe deputy mayor Mlungisi Ndlovu said they suspect that operators of the spaza shops were tipped off about the raids.
“We will be back because we are convinced that some products were hidden or thrown away to make sure everything was in order before we came in. We feel that they were tipped off,” said Ndlovu.
He added that their raids were not only restricted to foreign-owned spaza shops.
Ndlovu said it was worrying seeing the alleged food poisoning cases in their municipality when they used to only read and hear about them in newspapers and television.
Meanwhile, Nyuswa said they are planning an awareness programme to educate communities about the importance and risks of buying food without checking expiry dates.
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