A Grade 4 pupil at Wilhelmina Hoskins Primary School in Riverlea tragically died after allegedly consuming biscuits from a local spaza shop.
Steve Mabona, spokesperson for the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), confirmed that a post-mortem is scheduled for Wednesday following the incident, which occurred on Monday.
Mabona stated that district officials visited the family of the deceased learner, who had not attended school that day due to the conclusion of examinations.
“The family is waiting for the post-mortem report, as they were promised it would be available on Wednesday. They did not say much, but they would rather wait for the report,” Mabona said.
The family suspects that their son’s death is linked to the spaza shop, as he had pocket money and likely purchased snacks.
“There are incidents where the family confirmed that yes, the child had money and probably found a way of buying snacks. The family confirmed the child has not been at school, because they are done with the process of writing exams. The suspicion is very high that the child might have brought these snacks from a local spaza shop,” Mabona added.
In response to the incident, community members in Riverlea took action by shutting down the local spaza shop reportedly associated with the learner’s passing.
“We saw that the spaza shop has been closed by the members of the community,” Mabona noted.
Additionally, Mabona mentioned that police have launched an investigation following the murder of a Grade 7 learner at the same school. The boy was shot dead at his family’s home by unknown suspects on Saturday.
“The police are investigating the circumstances surrounding this sad incident,” he said.
During an ANC event in Thabazimbi, President Cyril Ramaphosa warned South Africans against registering spaza shops on behalf of foreigners, highlighting concerns over fraudulent registrations.
“We have now realised that there is some crookery that is going on, where people are using other people to register when they themselves are not registrable. We are going to fathom into that,” Ramaphosa stated.
He recently set a 21-day deadline for spaza shop owners to register with local municipalities, stating: “Those that don’t meet the standards, who don’t comply, we will close them. We have already started closing a number of spaza shops, particularly those that have suspicious stores selling suspicious goods.”
The Star
hope.mafu@inl.co.za