Bereaved told: Dig your own graves

04 April 2013 - 02:44 By NIVASHNI NAIR and SCHALK MOUTON
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Families in Pretoria might have to dig the graves of relatives themselves because of the expiry of a municipal grave-digging contract on Monday.

Funeral undertakers were shocked to discover that grave-diggers had downed tools at all Tshwane municipal cemeteries, leaving it to undertakers or relatives of the dead to dig and cover the graves.

The inland region chairman of the National Funeral Directors' Association, Elsabe Basilio, yesterday said: "It is very traumatising.

"Funerals cannot be postponed. I had a burial at which my staff had to arrive early to dig the grave.

"In some cases, grieving families have to cover the graves because there is no one else to do it," she said.

Tshwane spokesman Nomasonto Ndlovu said the council was not aware of the situation.

One undertaker yesterday left a body in an open grave.

"He just said the municipality must come and sort this out because we should not be doing it," said Basilio. "To handle a grave, one needs special permission so it is not even within the law.

"We have been getting our staff to assist but undertakers not bound by our organisation might walk away. So what then happens to that grave?"

She said the city's contract for grave-digging expired at the end of last month.

"The contractor agreed to stay on in the interim while a new tender went out. But he was not paid for the last three months of work, so he is now refusing to help."

Basilio's funeral association will make an urgent application to the Pretoria High Court today for an order that would compel the municipality to hire grave-diggers.

"This situation has to be resolved. We cannot expect grieving families to dig graves and we cannot expect our staff, who are not hired for that duty, to do it," she said.

Undertaker Barry Cronjé said undertakers were obliged to pay a R757 excavation fee to the municipality even if the service were not provided.

"What are we paying for? How do grieving families feel?

"One guy said he would go out to dig the grave on his own while another family told me that they would do no such thing. I had to go out and get people off the street to dig a grave for a burial tomorrow."

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