SPUR APOLOGY AND ACTION PLAN
In the month since the widely publicised incident at Texamo Spur in The Glen Shopping Centre in Johannesburg, everyone at Spur has had time to reflect on our actions leading up to, during and after the event.
Spur would like to take this opportunity to unreservedly apologise to the South African public. Our response fell short of our own high standards. We should have done better. We expect it from ourselves to do better and we believe that the South African public deserve better.
It was an intensive period of self-reflection for everyone at Spur and with the wisdom of hindsight, we have decided to embark on a course of action to address the shortcomings in our response.
We have asked Prof. Elmien du Plessis of the Faculty of Law at North-West University (NWU) to convene a panel and draft guidelines for an in-depth investigation into all relevant aspects of the incident on 19 March 2017 and how it was handled. Prof. Du Plessis holds an LLD from Stellenbosch University, is a member of the Human Rights Committee of the NWU and an alumnus of the South African Research Chair in Property Law.
The panel will be completely independent and have full access to all facts and footage surrounding the event. The team will make recommendations to Spur on actions that should be taken to rectify the shortcomings in our response and improve our reaction to similar incidents in future.
Such an investigation will take time to conclude its work and although we have impressed the need for urgency upon Prof. Du Plessis, it is important that she and the convened panel have the time to do a proper investigation. Additional details about the panellists and timeline will be made public in the coming weeks.
It is, however, the opinion of everyone at Spur that regardless of the outcome and recommendations of the panel, certain immediate steps are called for.
We have already embarked on a national programme to increase the child-minder to child ratio in our Play Canyons during busy periods. We have also launched a formal re-education drive that will refresh and enhance the procedures and skills of our minders.
In the month since this incident, we have learned many lessons. We are implementing steps to ensure the safety of customers and personnel at our restaurants. Given the current socio-political climate in our country, regrettably no company can foresee an incident like this happening. After the incident, Spur has already and will continue to move swiftly to provide key personnel with the necessary conflict resolution skills.
Statement issued by the Spur Corporation, 27 April 2017
