As the city struggles to provide water to residents it is regarded a luxury to water the graves. According to one grave digger, there is no need to continue looking after the dead when the living are not being properly taken care of.
A visit by this newspaper to several cemeteries discovered that passersby and those who congregate near them for church services have been relieving themselves within the graveyards whose toilets have become disused.
City officials interviewed by blamed lack of resources for the poor state of the graveyards. “We are currently facing severe water and manpower shortages. There is no water at most of the cemeteries so we cannot fully maintain the premises,” said an employee at the Highfields cemetery.
City spokesman Leslie Gwindi is on record bemoaning lack of funding and resources to maintain the cemeteries. The city employs an assistant director responsible for cemeteries and parks but according to sources that office is ill-equipped to do the job as it does not have tractors, shovels or picks.
“At the moment only four tractors are working in the whole city. We are a little hard up,” an official said. According to the Cemeteries Act Chapter 5:04, the Local Government ministry has the responsibility to appoint people to “preserve, maintain and keep in a clean and orderly state and condition” all graves.
Post published in: News
looking for details on second world war military graveyards.