Durban — The eThekwini Municipality said they had bought a 26-hectare portion of land in northern Ottawa near Mount Edgecombe for the purposes of developing a cemetery.
The land is in the development process currently, the municipality revealed during a full council meeting on Friday.
ActionSA’s Ahmed Paruk tabled questions to the council regarding aspects of the cemeteries and crematoriums. Paruk said residents of eThekwini were battling to have dignified funerals for their loved ones and sometimes bury their loved ones months later.
The municipality said the city continued to look for potential land that may be suitable for the development of new cemeteries including engagement with private developers who develop private cemeteries. Currently, the city has 65 cemeteries and two crematoriums, that is, Mobeni and oThongathi. Paruk said eight were in use.
Paruk said most people wanted to bury family members alongside others in the same cemetery.
“The shortage of graves leads to the delay. Families are waiting for space to open up. The talk about Ottawa has been ongoing for the past five years. There has been no timeline or assurance of when it will open. Muslim cemeteries have space for the next five to eight years because they recycle graves,” Paruk said.
The grave capacity as of August 15 was 10 851: Etafuleni Cemetery has 1 817, Molweni Cemetery 3 064, Phoenix 2 320, Langefontein 2 009, Umkhomazi Drift 726 and Mophela Cemetery 915.
The report before the council said six cemeteries were active while the other 59 were not completely dormant. Some families have taken up their leases of graves which allowed them to re-use the graves for new family intimates.
The municipality has terminated the recycling graves due to ongoing legal issues with the practice. The report said, however, that re-use of family graves continued where families had a lease on the graves.
Daily News