Commanders Task Team clean Sharpeville’s Vuka cemetery
"People that come to dump at the Vuka cemetery are mostly not from Sharpeville."
SHARPEVILLE. – Cleanliness is next to godliness!
Proof was when the Boitshepiville Commanders Task Team (a civil and non-profit organisation) took matters upon themselves and cleaned the Vuka cemetery in Sharpeville yesterday, Thursday.
Sedibeng Ster recently covered a story where the community of Sharpeville said that they wanted 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), opposite the Vanderbijlpark Cemetery.
This made the community even angrier because, they said that the Vanderbijlpark Cemetery is not used as a dumping site. Under the leadership of Biblos Lebona, the Boitshepiville Commanders Task Team took matters into their own hands and stopped people from dumping at the Vuka Cemetery.
On Thursday wheelbarrows, rakes and spades were at work to clean the cemetery. This was also the initiative of Lebona and his team, joined by the community.
“We promised to stop those that are dumping here, and now we are taking action by showing them that we want the place clean. There should never be dumping here, our ancestors lie here, they need to be respected,” Lebona said.
He further noted that the people that come to dump at the Vuka cemetery are mostly not from Sharpeville.
“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 concluded.
Sedibeng Ster also reported last year, when 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.
ELM’s Makhosonke Sangweni confirmed that 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.”
