Compliant township businesses ‘need more support’

The Gauteng government recently unveiled its approach to implementing the newly published by-laws and regulations for spaza shops.

It came after Cooperative Governance Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa gazetted the new standard draft by-law for township economies, which aims to “ create an enabling environment for small businesses in townships.”

At least 23 children have died in Gauteng this year after they ate food allegedly purchased at local spaza shops and vendors.

TEA founder Bulelani Balabala warned that a blanket approach would create more harm and would not solve the problem. 

“Recovering from such reputational damage for township businesses is going to be very difficult. Hence government needs also to advertise the township economy when there is compliance,” Balabala said  

He added that the government also need to do more to enforce compliance.   

“It’s also important that we also unpack the fact that the government itself, with inspectors and regulators, do not have enough manpower to be able to go out to every spaza shop,” Balabala said.  

“Which is why it is important that in every area they identify stakeholders who will ensure that they will be able to drive the learning, measurements, inspection and the accountability to non-complaint businesses.”

Balabala responded to the new legislation by the Standard Draft By-Law for Township Economies.

The new regulations issued by Hlabisa also seek to regulate the number of foreign-owned businesses operating in townships.

"The regulation is appropriate because it protects the citizen, but we need to take into consideration that we need to, in the end, measure out if the right sort of support and development of those businesses has already been done. In that way it is not a one-sided approach,” Balabala said. 

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