Parly's COGTA committee wants greater accountability for child deaths related to contaminated spaza shop food

CAPE TOWN - Parliament's cooperative governance committee is calling for greater accountability for the deaths of children who died from contaminated food bought from spaza shops.

They questioned whether foreign nationals who had been successful in obtaining business permits had legitimately met the criteria.

Briefing the committee on Tuesday, the department said more business and health inspectors were being employed to monitor the situation on the ground.

Only around 2,977 applications from foreign nationals had been approved to run a spaza shop from the more than 18,000 applications received since last July.

But MPs were sceptical that this was a true reflection of the situation on the ground.

They want the department to interrogate the approved applications to check whether the criteria had been met for asylum seekers.

Among them was the MK Party's Zwelakhe Mthethwa.

"They are fronting with food but they are running another operation altogether, something that you have no clue about."

Chairperson of the committee, Zweli Mkhize, said there were also broader issues at play.

"The takeover of certain areas by a particular group of nationals and some areas are almost no-go zones for South Africans. Those issues can’t be left without being attended to."

The committee said it wanted the departments of health and home affairs to appear before them to answer to questions related to food safety and immigration.