Jabulile Mbatha22 November 2024 | 16:28

CoJ officials close 5 spaza shops for non-compliance in Dobsonville

The team visited twelve shops in total and a majority of them were found with expired foods on their shelves.

CoJ officials close 5 spaza shops for non-compliance in Dobsonville

City of Johannesburg multi-disciplinary inspection team raided a Dobsonville spaza shop on 22 November 2024 and shut it down for for running a business in a residential area, selling expired products, and using expired asylum papers. Picture: @CityofJoburgZA/X

JOHANNESBURG - City of Joburg officials closed five spaza shops for non-compliance in Dobsonville, Soweto on Friday afternoon during a multi-disciplinary raid.

The team visited 12 shops in total and the majority of them were found with expired foods on their shelves.

The raid comes after a five-year-old died in Diepkloof this week after eating contaminated food bought from a local store.

READ: 3 people arrested in Dobsonville spaza shop raid where expired food, illegal medication, live ammo found

The waste management team said it removed all expired and unlabelled foods.

"In terms of the foodstuff, a lot of expired products in all the other shops was also taken in and there's some of the products have a myriad of non-compliance. For example, it's not properly priced or it's not priced at all. Some of the biscuits, the labelling, it's either not labelled, especially the pre-packaged foods that was confiscated. Because that is the issue that we generally have with pre-packaging is the poor hygiene issues and the cross-contamination that happens when these foods are then repackaged," said Gauteng director of consumer affairs, Milly Viljoen.