Bulawayo residents have been urged to stick to their allocated burial time in order to avoid congestion at cemeteries.
City fathers made the call during a full council meeting, Wednesday as they deliberated on service delivery at the burial sites.
Addressing the meeting Ward 16 Cllr Mildred Ncube said there is a lot of congestion at cemeteries as mourners gather there at the same time leading to a shortage of resources such as shovels and council staff to assist in the covering of graves.
“Your Worship, there is need to come up with measures of limiting congestion at burial sites. There will be a lot of people burying their loved ones all at once and chaos arises as they exchange shovels and other tools. This ends up delaying the burial process in overall,” Cllr Ncube said.
Deputy Mayor Cllr Mlandu Ncube added that families take “too much time” bidding farewell to the deceased, taking little cognisance of the time allocated to them at the cemetery.
He explained that if residents were to stick to time, they would help in maintaining order at burial sites.
Another concern that was raised by the councillors is the issue of limited parking space and the need to revamp the cemeteries.
Ward 6 Cllr Tawanda Ruzive noted that there is a need to revamp Umvutsha cemetery, the new burial site, so that it may be presentable.
“There is limited parking space at Umvutsha and the infrastructure does not look too good. Honestly, if you’re to be given a platform to speak as councilor there you would be embarrassed even to stand in front of the people. We need to make the place look better,” he said.
Ward 19 Cllr Sikhululekile Moyo said renovations of the cemetery are in progress since the site is fairly new.
Cllr Sikhululekile Moyo explains that Umvutshwa cemetery is a work in progress.
