The JB Marks Local Municipality and the national department of Agriculture have launched a crackdown on businesses that don’t adhere to hygiene standards and those selling unregistered pesticides in cockroach-infested Potchefstroom in the North West.
A month ago an NGO called, CropLife SA warned of a near-pandemic outbreak of German cockroaches in South Africa and – Potchefstroom is one of the affected areas.
JB Marks Local Municipality’s Chief Community Safety Officer Sello Cele said a lot of retailers in town were not practicing hygiene standards.
“We are looking at issues of hygiene, issues of the type of food that they are selling. We found a lot of shops that were dirty and we have given them time to clean and the places are going to be closed until Monday
“We must not undermine the outbreak. Housekeeping is important. We are encouraging our people to report places where they go and realise that there is a problem of housekeeping,” he said,
Crop Life SAs Operations Manager Dr. Gerhard Verdoorn said the very wet and humid summer brought about a near-pandemic outbreak of cockroaches in all communities in South Africa.
He said his organisation is inundated with calls from overnight-stay establishments that are overrun by cockroaches.
“I get a lot of calls from food outlets, flats, guesthouses and informal settlements complaining about these cockroaches all over the place,” he said.
Verdoorn said cockroach control starts with a serious effort to sanitise human habitation of refuse and left-over foodstuffs.
“A dirty kitchen is littered with left-over food and freely available pet food needs serious intervention to deny these unsavoury critters from invading a home and setting up a colony. Refuse bags must be secured in plastic wheelie bins or drums out of access of cockroaches,” he said.
