The South African Federation of Trade Unions extends its sincerest condolences to the families of the six children who died after allegedly consuming poisoned snacks in Naledi, Soweto. We are saddened by this needless tragedy.
In its media statement released on 15 October, the National Consumer Commission (NCC) reported on an inspection conducted in Naledi, Soweto. The NCC inspection revealed non-compliance in many areas. Some items were being sold beyond their sell-by date; some products were labelled in a foreign language with unclear or no ingredient information, and some were simply unlabelled.
The City of Johannesburg’s by-laws prescribe and regulate business conduct by street vendors. By-laws stipulate that those who conduct business must have a permit from the City of Johannesburg (COJ). These permits require that food vendors comply with health and safety standards, including but not limited to food handling procedures, proper hygiene practices, and waste management. Yet despite these set-out regulations, lack of government oversight has led to the premature end of six young lives in Soweto. SAFTU holds the City of Johannesburg responsible for the death of these children, for their failure to enforce their own by-laws. This is not an isolated failure in public service and it will not be the last. These are the dire consequences of budget cuts for the masses of the downtrodden working class.
The health inspectorate’s inability to ensure complete adherence to the city’s by-laws and thus guarantee consumer protection is directly linked to public service budget cuts. Inspectors have the very important task of ensuring compliance and consumer protection, yet fewer resources are allocated to this function. Vacant inspectorate posts and understaffing prevent inspectors from adequately discharging their duties. Ironically the Democratic Alliance reports that the COJ’s operational budget for health and social development has been reduced from R100 million to R49 million over the last twelve years. They rightly note that these budget cuts have led to deadly resource and capacity shortages. Sadly, their desire for “fiscal discipline“ and privatisation of essential services will not solve this problem. This non-compliance is not limited to Soweto or Johannesburg. In the City of Tshwane, health and social development budget cuts have led to such severe staff shortages that the city cannot conduct the required minimum of two annual inspections for all its vendors. The city has only one inspector for every 60,000 people in the metro. The recommended global standard is one inspector per 10,000 residents. In a city of over four million residents, there are only 74 inspectors and the metro unable to fill 144 vacant posts. Ekurhuleni has 94 inspectors in a city of 4.2 million residents, a ratio of 44,680 residents per inspector. This year the NCC has conducted inspections on vendors in Limpopo and the Eastern Cape and reported similar non-compliance as discovered in Soweto.
It is clear from these figures that inspectors will not be able to effectively inspect, monitor, and enforce compliance with the by-laws protecting consumers from the harmful effects of non-compliance.
The senseless deaths of the Naledi Six could have been avoided had the inspectorate been fully capacitated to ensure adherence to the city’s by-laws. The responsibility for the needless deaths of the Naledi Six lies squarely on the shoulders of the government for its commitment to neoliberal budget cuts and its failure to enforce its own by-laws. It is a disgrace that children in working-class communities are placed in harm’s way due to the government’s adherence to a neoliberal programme of reducing public budgets and minimising the role of the state.
