The state of the Zandfontein Cemetery has the community outraged, as they feel that their loved ones’ final reasting places are not being respected.
According to the community, the cemetery has been looking like a jungle, with overgrown grass and weeds left to grow rampant around people’s graves for several months.
“It is the first time since 2002 that it has been like this. Since October last year, the cemetery has looked bad. Every time you call the Tshwane metro, they give the same excuse,” a Wonderboom South resident, Elsabé van Staden, complained.
The Tshwane metro, however, disagreed, saying that the cemetery’s maintenance was conducted from 1-6 December last year. “The grass grew faster in the last two months due to the heavy rainfall, making the cemeteries look untidy,” Selby Bokaba, spokesperson for the metro, said. He added that the cemeteries were maintained on a monthly basis or whenever there was an urgent need.
But Van Staden said that when they complained about the cemetery’s condition, they were told time and again that the contractor’s contract for maintaining the cemetery had expired and the Tshwane metro has not yet renewed the contract or given it to someone new.
Contrary to this, Bokaba stated that there were no challenges with the appointed contractor. “The contractor is currently busy with maintenance on-site and has increased its manpower so as to attend to other cemeteries as well.”
Maritza Atkinson, who visits the cemetery frequently, indicated that this was untrue, as she too had been told that no clean-up had been done because the contractor’s contract had expired and had not yet been reallocated. “The cemetery used to be kept in an immaculate condition, until now.”
Anna Pienaar from Pretoria Gardens was angry and frustrated about the condition of the cemetery, because she felt she, as a taxpayer, was being robbed. “It is a problem that we pay tax and this is what we get. The grass is so high that criminals can hide in there.” Pienaar said she was disappointed that she had to feel uneasy when visiting her daughter’s grave. She suggested that the municipality hire people begging for money on the street corners to clean up the graveyard.
Some community members have taken it upon themselves to clean-up the areas around their loved ones’ graves, as they are tired of waiting for the metro. “I went to buy a grass-cutter on Monday so that my gardener and I could come cut the overgrown grass near my husband’s tombstone,” Van Staden said. “I feel that the metro is letting us down. If I have to come and clean around my husband’s tombstone, then I will not pay tax.”
Atkinson said she had a similar problem last year with her father’s grave when she had to clean up the area around it before his funeral. “There was a grave next to my parents’ grave that fell in, and there are hundreds more. There was also a whole dug opposite my parents’ grave that stood open from August last year until this year, when it was closed.”
She said that rubbish was strewn everywhere. It is alleged that the workers at the cemetery ask people for money to clean the graves, and if they do not get this money, they just sit and do nothing.
The community said they were tired of waiting for the metro to clean the cemetery and for their complaints to be attended to. Bokaba said that the appointed contractor would clean the Zandfontein Cemetery before the end of the week.
