The loss of lives is a damning indictment of the government's repeated failures to implement adequate food safety regulations and enforce existing standards.

When I read that "Parliament's Education, Sciences and Creative Industries Select Committee ... wants government to ban foreign nationals from operating spaza shops and maintain an updated register of people who sell snacks at schools," my immediate reaction was simple: here we go again - another hollow, rhetorical statement that does little to address the real issues.

This response by the South African government, through the committee's call to ban foreign nationals from operating spaza shops and the push to maintain an updated register of school snack vendors, appears to be a case of too little, too late.

Six children in Soweto have tragically lost their lives due to lethal organophosphate poisoning - an outcome that could have been prevented with effective regulation of this restricted pesticide.

For more than three decades, issues around the regulation of small businesses - formal or informal - and foreign ownership of informal businesses in South Africa have been pressing concerns in the country, yet meaningful policies and implementation strategies have been slow and, at times, inconsistent and ineffective.

Typical is Regulation 638 of 2018 governing general hygiene requirements for food premises, the transport of food and related matters, which is...