Cemeteries to go digital
The Tshwane metro will soon be introducing its new electronic burial and management system that will centralise all details concerning burial registers and other information.
All 24 cemeteries in Tshwane metro will soon have their data captured in an electronic format to easily store and retrieve information on matters such as family trees and grave locations.
This would serve to enhance the Tshwane 2055 vision, mayoral spokesperson Blessing Manale said on Tuesday.
The electronic burial information and management system was initiated in the 2014/15 financial year.
“It was introduced to modernise the management of information related to burials within the metro to have efficient, clear and reliable information,” he said.
“Once all teething problems … have been resolved, the programme may be implemented in all 24 active cemeteries of the city.”
Manale said the project was mainly based on a computerised application running on a centralised metro server.
“This is meant to allow for burial data for all cemeteries to be captured in an electronic format. This approach enables the metro to among others, store and retrieve the information for use by the metro and its citizens as and when required,” Manale said.
Previously, the records in the registers were only available at the specific cemetery, whereas information captured on the burial management and information system would be shared between all the city’s cemeteries.
Manale said data would be captured and backed-up daily.
“Data previously recorded in burial registers is also being captured onto the system digitally. To date, the software and setting up of the infrastructure have been finalised and currently the system had been implemented in several cemeteries,” said Manale.
“They are as follows: Region 1: Ga-Rankuwa, Mabopane and Soshanguve cemeteries. Region 2: Honingnestkrans cemetery. Region 3: Lotus Gardens cemetery, Zandfontein cemetery and the crematorium. Region 4: Olievenhoutbosch cemetery and Laudium cemetery and in Region 6 it will be Eersterust cemetery and Hatherley cemetery.”
The rest of the 24 cemeteries would follow suit, said Manale.
Information contained in 33 registers had been scanned into electronic folders to date. This information would gradually be transferred to the new system.
“The new system will have many benefits. They include, doing away with the old orthodox way of using books, pen and paper, doing away with unreadable fading handwritings, loss of pages in torn registers, avoidance of fraud and the ability to provide reliable up to date data.”
Manale said an obstacle currently being tackled was the absence of a network connection at some cemeteries.
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