• African National Congress Secretary General Fikile Mbalula has called for severe action to be taken on the growing epidemic of deaths linked to spaza shops.
• He led a march to the party’s Tshwane House on 8 November 2024 to highlight concerns about service delivery.
• His comments came after the deaths of 12 children in the country, allegedly from eating food bought from spaza stores.

Tebogo Mokwena, a dedicated News in brief current affairs journalist, contributed coverage of international and local social issues such as health, corruption, education, unemployment, labour, service delivery protests and heritage in South Africa during his seven years at the Daily Sun and Vutivi Business news.

PRETORIA — Secretary General of the African National Congress Fikile Mbalula called for something to be done to reduce the increasing number of child deaths from food bought from spaza stores.

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Fikile Mbalula calls for action

Mbalula led a march to the party’s Tshwane House on 8 November 2024 to highlight issues facing communities, including improving service delivery, economic equity and other community concerns. Mbalula said the president Cyril Ramaphosa told him that the government was hiring the National Institute of Communicable Diseases to address the problem child deaths due to food poisoning.

Mbalula’s comments came after 12 children died this week after eating them food would have bought from spaza stores. He said the government would regulate the environment in a similar way to how it responded to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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His comments did not amuse netizens Facebook.

Leonard Rsa Magagula said:

“This is the ANC we know. That is why South Africans punished you during the election and will punish you until you are gone.”

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Cphiwe Skhoma said:

“He’s only talking because he’s trying to calm people down, nothing more.”

Ras Abdul Khabir said:

“Closing spaza stores will not stop this problem. They should dig deep to find the real problem.”

TK Vee said:

“Reactionary instead of preventive.”

Amos Sello said:

“We hear talk, but we don’t see action.”

An 11-year-old child dies from snacks

In a related article, News in brief reported that year An 11-year-old child died after allegedly eating snacks bought from a spaza shop.

The child complained about the taste, and her mother ate a few snacks. Her younger brother had also eaten, and while all three were hospitalized, the little girl was pronounced dead.

Source: News in brief