VANDERBIJLPARK – The beleaguered Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM)’s poor service delivery and crumbling infrastructure are major sources of concern for residents.
Roads are filled with potholes, garbage is not removed, and water leaks and power outages are the order of the day.
Even Vanderbijlpark’s cemetery is so dirty, overgrown, and unsafe that no one dares to visit their loved ones’ graves anymore.
Sewage flows between the graves, and the grass grows taller than the graves.
According to residents and council members, the problems have been reported to ELM several times, but due to financial and operational challenges, nothing is being done about the matter.
Kyla Paulsen, a Vanderbijlpark resident, shared her frustration and photos of the dire conditions on Facebook.
“It’s so sad to see the cemetery going downhill. You can’t even walk there because the grass is so long, you don’t know if you’re going to step in a hole. The grass is higher than some of the gravestones. There is sewage water flowing between the graves,” she wrote on Facebook.
