“They Cooked the Books”: Expert Spots Red Flags in Approved Spaza Shop Funding List, SA Reacts

• Princy Mthombeni, co-founder of SACR, used a PAIA request to obtain SEDFA’s spaza shop beneficiary list
• The list showed a Limpopo-listed spaza shop placed in a municipality that actually belongs to KwaZulu-Natal
• SEDFA confirmed R57.3 million was disbursed to 931 spaza shop owners, but refused access to individual evaluation files

A constitutional reform activist has raised serious concerns about the government’s spaza shop support fund after obtaining the beneficiary list through a formal information request.

Princy Mthombeni, co-founder of South Africans for Constitutional Reform (SACR), shared her findings on TikTok on 13 August 2026. Her organisation had submitted a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency, known as SEDFA, seeking details on who received funding and how approvals were made.

What SEDFA’s response revealed

SEDFA confirmed that its contribution to the spaza shop support fund stands at R150 million. As of 7 August 2026, the agency had disbursed R57.3 million to 931 spaza shop owners across the country. The beneficiary list provided to SACR includes the business name, approval date, district, municipality, province and amount approved.

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But the very first entry on that list caught Mthombeni’s eye. A spaza shop listed under Limpopo was placed in Abaqulisi municipality, which does not exist in Limpopo. Abaqulisi is a municipality in KwaZulu-Natal. Mthombeni was careful not to frame the error as proof of fraud, but argued that any information released about the use of public money must be accurate.

SEDFA had stated that due diligence was conducted before approvals, including physical site visits, Home Affairs checks, identity document verification and compliance reviews. Mthombeni said those claims make the geographical inconsistency harder to dismiss without explanation.

On the matter of redacted names in the list, Mthombeni explained that SEDFA cited section 4 of PAIA to protect the personal information of individuals who applied as natural persons, including ID numbers, addresses and banking details. She noted this is legally sound and does not automatically indicate that anything is being hidden.

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SEDFA also refused access to individual evaluation files, scorecards, due diligence reports, financial assessments and adjudication records, again citing PAIA protections.

Mthombeni said SACR is now working through the full list to identify further inconsistencies and plans to return to SEDFA with questions where discrepancies arise.

Watch Princy Mthombeni break down the SEDFA beneficiary list on TikTok:

South Africans react to the findings

Viewers on TikTok and other platforms were quick to respond:

@African labour brokers asked:

“Can I ask something here please, what is the function of the public protector because it’s very silent on public issues?”

@Banzai noted:

“The first business on the list is not even registered.”

@Lungisani said:

“They cooked the books. 👀😅”

More stories involving spaza shops

• A South African man criticised calls for government funding, arguing business owners should carry their own financial risks.
• Dereleen James visited Lekker Stop Spaza Shop in Westridge and shared a video about the two young owners.
• A video shared on X showed foreign spaza shop owners who allegedly relocated from Rustenburg to a rural KwaZulu-Natal community after being chased out of the township.

Source: Briefly News