DA wants government to trace the origins of the illegal chemicals found in spaza shops

CAPE TOWN - The Democratic Alliance (DA) says government must trace the origins of the illegal chemicals discovered in some goods purchased from several spaza shops.

The party has condemned the recent tragedy in which 22 children lost their lives after consuming contaminated food from these stores.

READ: NCC investigating sale of expired goods at spaza shops

This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa's speech on Friday, in which he called for action to stop the operation of unregulated spaza shops.

DA national spokesperson, Karabo Khakhau further stressed that no more lives should be lost and called for the issue to be resolved as soon as possible.

"And we call on the presidency to engage provincial governments to increase the number of permanently employed environmental health practititoners, because we know the statistics currently shows that there's only 1712 of these when in actual fact we need 6203 of them to ensure that we adequately cover the scope of what is necessary."