SHARPEVILLE.- The community of Sharpeville wants the Vuka Cemetery to be respected and the illegal dumping on the site to stop.

The cemetery is along the way to Vanderbijlpark and Tshepiso (Sharpeville). It is also opposite the Vanderbijlpark Cemetery, which makes the community even angrier because, they say, the Vanderbijlpark Cemetery is not used as a dumping site.

Last Friday, under the leadership of Biblos Lebona, the Boitshepiville Commanders Task Team (a civil and non-profit organisation) took matters into their own hands and stopped people from dumping at the Vuka Cemetery.

“The people that come to dump here are not from Sharpeville agreed, there might be a few with their wheelbarrows, but a lot are not from here. They come from Vanderbijlpark and other areas, some as far as Sasolburg,” Lebona said.

Last year, the organisation’s members removed vagrants from outside the cemetery where they were apparently ‘encouraging’ drivers of bakkies full of rubbish to come and dump so that they could collect materials to recycle. After it reached its allowed burial capacity, the Vuka Cemetery was closed in the late eighties/early nineties. Only reburials and those who bought land at the cemetery are permitted there.

“Our people are buried there and they deserve the respect that is afforded to those that lie there just across the road,” Lebona said referring to the Vanderbijlpark Cemetery.

ELM’s Makhosonke Sangweni said they are aware of the situation.

“We are aware of the situation and we are working on increasing our resources in the form of tipper trucks to attend to all of the illegal dumping. The shortage of resources has been the reason we have not been able to resolve all the illegal dumping you see.”

It is no secret that the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) is currently facing service delivery challenges, but the Boitshepiville Commanders Task Team is asking for action to be taken about the illegal dumping.