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INLSA<\/p>\n
Thami Bolani, chairman of the national Consumer Forum says it is becoming harder to attract people to an event without the promise of a plate of food.<\/p>\n
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More and more people are gatecrashing funerals, weddings and other social events, mainly in townships, just to get a plate of food. <\/p>\n
It was becoming harder to attract people to an event without the promise of a plate of food, said National Consumer Forum chairman Thami Bolani. <\/p>\n
These days it was a prerequisite that meals were supplied at public meetings organised by the government and the private sector, he added. In some cases, people even asked for a transport stipend to be included, otherwise they were not interested in attending. <\/p>\n
\u201cNo catering, no people\u2026 people only come when meals are going to be served,\u201d Bolani said. <\/p>\n
He said that while the price of food was not as high as it was two to three years ago, prices were still increasing and were \u201cquite high\u201d. <\/p>\n
This meant that most families were forced to cut back on groceries, because \u201cwages are not keeping up with the cost of living\u201d. <\/p>\n
As a result, those people who fell into the LSM categories 1-5\/6 were struggling to buy food that was required daily, such as fruit, vegetables and chicken. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are no longer eating healthy or nutritious foods because they can\u2019t afford to buy veggies and fruits, so they are relying on mealie meal and meat, \u201cwhich is inadequate\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why there are high levels of malnutrition among young people,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
KwaMashu-based events planner Ntombenhle Shezi, of Ntombenhle Catering and Decor, said there was definitely an increase in uninvited guests at events, and this had a huge effect on planning budgets. <\/p>\n
\u201cOrganising township weddings is difficult, as there is no \u2018entrance by invitation only\u2019 policy. Everyone pitches up. Even passers-by see a tent, decide to make a stop and demand a plate of food.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pro-Cords events planner Thami Zondi said: \u201cWe try to accommodate a client\u2019s budget, but sometimes that is difficult, as we don\u2019t know the numbers we are cooking for.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INLSA Thami Bolani, chairman of the national Consumer Forum says it is becoming harder to attract people to an event without the promise of a plate of food. More and more people are gatecrashing funerals, weddings and other social events, mainly in townships, just to get a plate of food. It was becoming harder to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-12459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}