MPs question whether approved applications for foreign nationals to operate spaza shops meet legal requirements

JOHANNESBURG - Parliamentarians have cast doubt on whether the almost 3,000 approved applications for foreign nationals to operate spaza shops in the country meet the legal requirements.

This number makes up only around 13% of the 23,072 approved applications submitted to municipalities countrywide since July last year.

But the portfolio committee on cooperative governance said it did not believe all the approvals granted to foreign nationals were legitimate.

They’re calling for greater accountability for children who died last year after eating contaminated food bought from foreign-run spaza shops.

Parliamentarians across the political divide were sceptical of the figures presented to them on Tuesday, which indicate that only about a quarter of all the 87,407 applications received since last July were approved to run a spaza shop.

The majority of the applications were made in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

But they questioned whether foreign-owned businesses, in particular, met the criteria for asylum seekers to start businesses, and the R5 million investment required.

The MK Party’s Zwelakhe Mthethwa said: "It’s a cutthroat industry and network of foreign nationals colluding with our national retail store owners and wholesalers, because it’s about business, and our people are on the receiving end of all of this."

The African National Congress’s Nombiselo Sompa-Masiu said: "The foreigners are not paying tax. Most of them are shipping their money. They’ve got a connection through the harbours. They don’t put their money through the bank."

The department said South African permit holders were illegally allowing foreign nationals to use their permits and premises to operate their shops.