Kai !Garib municipality must, in conjunction with the ZFM district municipality, urgently adopt a proactive approach towards ensuring food safety. This comes amidst reports that pills were allegedly found in a packet of chips at Kenhardt and Loxtonvale Primary Schools this week.
After meeting with concerned residents of Keimoes today, it is clear that residents are angry and panicked at the thought that the food poisoning trend happening elsewhere in the country, seems to have gotten so much closer to home.
This is not the time to sit back and wait for a tragedy. I have asked the Mayor of Kai !Garib to urgently assume control of this situation by initiating a wave of tuckshop inspections throughout all the different wards in the municipality. Councillors should play their part by providing a list of the different tuckshops in their respective wards. All necessary authorities, including the district municipality, should then collectively embark on a programme to inspect the state of the local tuckshops.
Until the police have gotten to the bottom of this matter, warnings should also be issued to the entire Kai !Garib community to exercise caution and to try and stick to more well known and trusted brands, until this matter has been clarified. The DA will also call on the MEC of Education to regulate the sale of food in and around schools in the Northern Cape. We further appeal to communities to remain calm and not to take the law into their own hands.
While the enforcement of environmental health regulations has been neglected over the years, Kai !Garib must now take urgent action to ensure that our communities, and especially our children, are safe and have access to safe consumables.