Spaza shop and food handling businesses that applied to register their businesses with their local municipalities but were awaiting their registration outcomes will not be penalised, Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni said.
“We know the process had challenges, with many municipalities not having electronic business registration systems. All those that have applied are within their constitutional rights to do business but still await the registration outcomes will not be penalised.
She revealed that only 60 out of the municipalities in the country had a digital registration system.
Additionally, 135 registration centres were visited to gain firsthand experience of the challenges.
“We understand the difficulties and costs associated with becoming compliant and this is why over the next six months we will be supporting these spaza shops who applied but are not yet compliant with non-financial support to enable their successful registration and compliance,” the Minister said on Sunday.
Ndabeni was addressing media in Pretoria on the on Friday’s the spaza shop and food outlet registration deadline.
This as the deadline for registration was on Friday, 28 February 2025.
“This is the developmental approach to compliance we have adopted, offering assistance to those seeking to comply through training programs provided by our agency, the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency (SEDFA). We already have a spaza shop support programme that we are running including with the Wholesale and Retail SETA and others partners where we train spaza shops on inventory management and assist with essential equipment such as point-of-sale systems as well as financial support for stock.
“This is our proof of concept which we will improve and scale going forward. We also have a range of other interventions and offerings to support township and rural enterprises, including asset assist, business infrastructure support, as well as wholesale and direct lending, as well as credit guarantees we offer to banks to get them to lend to township and rural enterprises,” the Minister explained.
She said that Friday’s deadline does not necessarily mean that the problems and challenges of compliance by spaza shops and food handling outlets are over.
“The aim of the registration drive was two-fold, to ensure compliance with all food safety standards and to rebuild a more competitive and compliant business in our country,” Ndabeni said.
Ndabeni said the registration of spaza shops is but one of the interventions in a multi-disciplinary approach to curbing foodborne illnesses.
Sunday marked exactly 107 days since President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the registration of all spaza shops and food handling outlets. The announcement came after several incidents of food poisoning and deaths related to foodborne illnesses that were reported in different parts of the country.
The initial 21 days registration period, which would have ended in December last year, was subsequently extended by the President to 28 February as part of accommodating all eligible businesses to comply with the directive.
After the announcement by the President, through the National Joint Operational and Intelligence Structure (NATJOINTS), seven workstreams were established with the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) leading the economic workstream focussing more on interventions to build capacity in township and rural spaza shops and food convenience stores.
“We have supported the registration process which the Minister of COGTA [Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs] will speak to in the NATJOINT briefing in two weeks’ time,” she said.
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