The R10 Killer: A Banned Poison Still Sold Next to Lipstick on Our Streets

On a busy Johannesburg sidewalk, between the nail polish and the earrings, sits a small, dirty bucket. Its price tag reads R10. Its contents, black granules wrapped in flimsy plastic, have a street name that chills the bone: Halephirimi – “the sun won’t set.” For over 20 Gauteng children, that sun set forever in 2024 after they ate snacks contaminated with this poison. Yet, here it is, for sale as casually as a pack of gum.

This is terbufos, one of the world’s most toxic pesticides. Meant for potatoes and maize fields, it has wormed its way into township spaza shops and city street stalls. Despite a high-profile ban announced by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi in November 2024, the deadly trade continues, leaving parents to ask a desperate question into the void: How many more must die?

A Mother’s Anguish and a Vendor’s Confession

“I sleep with one eye open,” says Khethelo Zondi, a 25-year-old mother from Orlando East, Soweto. Her fear is a drumbeat in communities across the province. With schools back in session, her anxiety isn’t about grades, but about whether her child will come home alive. “Parents should have peace of mind when their children go to school, not fear that they could be harmed by something that should not even be available.”

The vendor on Sauer Street, who asked not to be named, knows it’s dangerous. She gives a careful spiel to buyers: keep it away from children, handle it with care. But she sells it next to skin-lightening creams, with no warning label, from a bucket supplied by her mother. She has no idea where her mother gets it. The supply chain is a shadowy mystery, but the end point is horrifyingly public.

A Law from Another Era, A Enforcement Failure

The core of this crisis, experts say, is a legislative fossil. The law governing pesticides is the Fertilisers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act of 1947 – a statute older than apartheid. “It cannot be argued that it is fit for purpose any longer,” states Professor Leslie London, a public health expert from UCT.

This archaic system creates a deadly game of pass-the-parcel. City officials say if they find terbufos, they can’t confiscate itthat’s a national agriculture department responsibility. The Gauteng agriculture department says monitoring illegal sales isn’t their job. The police confirm no arrests have been made, only fines issued. In the gaps between these bureaucratic silos, children are dying.

A Ban in Name Only, and a Glacial Process

While the government points to a gazetted notice for a full banwith public comments open until late February 2026the poison flows today. It’s already banned in over a dozen neighbouring countries, from Botswana to Zimbabwe. Here, the wheels of state turn with lethal slowness.

Meanwhile, parents like Che Serobedi from Diepsloot have taken safety into their own hands. “We now buy snacks only from well-known retailers,” he says. But he can’t relax. “You will never know what they do at school… these things are really stressful.”

The vendor’s warning echoes bitterly: “one mistake can lead to death.” We’ve made more than a mistake. We’ve built a system where a R10 packet of absolute poison is easier for a child to reach than it is for the state to stop. The sun has set for too many. Until that bucket disappears from the street stall, we are all failing our children.