Hawkers peddle rotten wares to pupils

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“We bought pap and fried chicken and to our surprise the meat had a bad smell to it and it tasted like soap bubbles. It also had a very different colour,”
says student Mukovhe Ramanzi. (File Photo)

Pupils at Mamphodo Secondary School in Gumela village, Limpopo noticed that the food they bought from local hawkers often had a foul taste and looked bad several weeks ago.

“We bought pap and fried chicken and to our surprise the meat had a bad smell to it and it tasted like soap bubbles,” said Mukovhe Ramanzi, describing when students began to suspect foul play several weeks ago. “It also had a very different colour, and that is when we realised something was very wrong.”

When hawkers were confronted, they allegedly admitted to re-frying and re-using food. Parents are furious, and principal Simpson Raluvhande has banished hawkers who used to sell pap, fried chicken, meat and chicken livers to children from the area.

“The word ‘furious’ cannot even begin to explain how I am feeling right now,” said Maria Ndadza, a mother of two pupils at the school. “To actually find out that my children have been eating rotten food all this time makes me beyond angry.”[quote float= right]”We realised that the meat tasted ‘weird’ but it never occurred to us that it was rotten”

“We didn’t realise until now that they prepare the same leftovers over and over again. We realised that the meat tasted ‘weird’ but it never occurred to us that it was rotten,” Ndadza’s 17-year-old daughter Mulamuleli told OurHealth. “We only figured out the other week that we actually were eating rotten food all this time.”

Raluvhande said the school decided to take decisive action.

“We ended up taking a decision to banish all the hawkers from the school yard or anywhere near the school premises,” he said. “We never want them at our school again unless they clean up their act and sell something different.

“We cannot allow them to kill our children while we just sit and watch,” he added. “Even though the children don’t have a place to buy food near the school now, it was a good decision to let the bad hawkers go.”

The banished hawkers refused to comment.