Council inspection leads to closer of 51 food retailers

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Thursday January 14, 2016 14:17

A principal economist at GCC Tebogo Tshoswane told the council sitting on Tuesday that the reason for refusing to renew licenses was because some shops and supermarket did not abide by health requirements. Some were found to be selling expired food items, he said. 

“Our inspection covers the whole area including the floor, food items sold, kitchen, toilet and fridges that keeps frozen food items. For example in trading premises amount of food disposed in kilogrammes  was 5,296.2 kg and amount of food disposed in litres was 714.4 kg,” Tshoswane said.  He said due to limited resources 90 inspections were done within service standard.

Tshoswane further said that the rejection of 51 businesses should be treated as a serious source of concern especially since they found some food items contaminated.

The council official further advised that it is not good for some of these food items to be taken to Gamodubu land fill as there attract dogs and people who scavenge for food to either consume or sell to unsuspecting members of the public.

“Some of the people who eat this food end up being hospitalised for food poisoning.  Shops are not supposed to be selling food that had expired to people. Any place that is selling food items should be clean at all times,”

Tshoswane added that the health department would “always do regular inspection at different shops after realising the high number of shops which failed inspection requirements.”

Meanwhile councillors have requested that the inspection should be done regularly since there are some retail stores that are not clean and therefore posing a serious threat to public health.