By DESTINE NDE
On Tuesday 28 January 2025, the residents of Willowmore, a small town in the Klein Karoo, were shocked by the results of an operation carried out by law enforcement officers.
Around 11 in the morning, police officials, health inspectors, members of the fire brigade, correctional officers, traffic police, and others visited four prominent shops in Willowmore, namely Saverite Supermarket, Zam Zam, Smart Shopper and Amigo.
During this operation, meat, groceries and cigarettes worth about R70 000 were confiscated. The meat was rotting, the groceries had expired — some in May of last year — and the cigarettes were illicit. Other shops in town were inspected too, but nothing infamous came out of it.
News of the ongoing operation spread like wildfire, and a large crowd soon gathered, watching everything that was happening. Before the shocked eyes of hundreds of people, the unwholesome products were loaded in the back of police vans and taken to the dump on the edge of town, where they were offloaded and burnt.
The head of the operation, Captain Nkondlo of the Willowmore SAPS, and others were too preoccupied to grant any interviews. They were worried the crowd might turn into an angry mob. And an uproar was the last thing they wanted, for they were neither prepared nor properly equipped for crowd management. As such they wanted the operation to be concluded as soon as possible. The shop owners were also too angry and embarassed to tell their side of the story.
The item that started it all … the maggoty pork chop. Image: the author.
Pictures and posts about the humiliating bust soon went viral on social media. The common sentiments were shock, disbelief, indignation, disgust. One particularly horrifying picture showed a fried pork chop crawling with maggots. In fact, this picture started the whole thing. The customer who had bought the nauseating pork chop was a police officer. First his colleagues put the scandalous picture on social media, warning people to ‘be careful where you buy your meat. My colleague bought this today, and as you can notice, there [are] worms on it. This is unacceptable and so dangerous. The shop owner [does] not care about his customers. We cannot stay quiet anymore.’
While most people were informed and warned about the food and health risks on social media, the SAPS took special care not to mention their intention to inspect the food, beverage and grocery shops in Willowmore.
That is why the shop owners were caught off-guard on that fateful Tuesday morning. They were surprised and mortified. Some were confused and began to panic. Others were angry and confrontational, and demanded that the law enforcement officers present a search warrant. They also asked why health inspectors had not notified them of the inspection. But all their efforts to discredit and hinder the operation were of no avail. The officers would not be persuaded, and did what they had to do.
Melissa Benedito, wife of Nelson Benedito, the owner of Saverite Supermarket, is a lawyer, and was the captain of the furious and confrontational ones. She did not only confront the officials, but wrote a Facebook post referring to the laws pertaining to such cases, and the duties and responsibilities of Health Officers according to The National Health Act. One relevant provision reads as follows:
‘Routine Inspection, 82 (1). A Health Officer may enter any premises, excluding a private dwelling, at any reasonable time and (a) inspect such premises in order to ensure compliance with this Act; (b) question any person… (c) require the person in charge of such premises to produce… any document that such person is required to maintain in terms of any law, and (d) take samples of any substance that is relevant to the inspection.’
Given this, it seems the law enforcement offiers were acting well within the confines of the law: they have the right to move in an inspect a premises at any reasonable time, and to ask questions and demand certain things as well. The shop owners have absolutely nothing to object or complain about. The officials were just doing their job. However, the situation around another provision is more complicated.
‘Routine Inspections, 82 (5). A health officer who removes any item other than that contemplated in subsection (I)(d) must (a), issue a receipt for it to the person in charge of the premises; and (b) subject to the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (Acts No. 51 0f 19977), return it as soon as practicable after achieving the purpose for which it was removed . Contravention of this Act by the Health Officer and/or Police may lead to disciplinary action, fines, potential suspension or removal from their position, prosecution and even criminal charges.’
As mentioned previously, the meats, groceries and cigarettes were simply taken from the shops and burnt. However, according to this article, these items were supposed to be returned to their respective proprietors once the evidence for contravening any laws (or the lack thereof) had been established. And they were supposed to be issued with receipts for the items confiscated, too. This was why Melissa threatened to sue all the agencies involved in the operation.
Her husband, Nelson, on the other hand, has simply barred everyone who participated in the operation from entering his shop. Put differently, since the raid, they are no longer allowed to shop at Saverite Supermarket. They can get their groceries and other things from somewhere else, but not from the Beneditos’ premises.
This is still the principal subject of many conversations in Willowmore – the agencies on the one hand, and the embarrassed shop owners on the other. I will continue to trace where all of this is leading to, and where it will end.
FEATURED IMAGE: Police vehicles outside the Saverite Supermarket. All images: the author.