Cremations at the Cambridge Crematorium ground to a halt for 10 days in December after the municipality failed to pay supplier, Afrox Gas, forcing bodies to be sent to a private crematorium 300km away in Despatch, outside of Gqeberha.
The Daily Dispatch reported this week, the municipality was cash-strapped with traffic officers being rejected from filling stations because of unpaid bills.
A report brought before council indicated that payments to the city’s top 20 creditors for services rendered in November also included outstanding payment for October of which payment was 30 days late.
Councillor Geoff Walton said this was a means to conserve money and may be caused by invoice disputes but also pointed to a larger problem. With dwindling revenue collection, the city had to implement a financial recovery plan to keep afloat.
Walton said the report did not give reasons for late payments nor provide the payment status of the full list of creditors doing business with the municipality including Afrox Gas.
According to one funeral director, this was not the first time the account had not been settled in time, causing sub-standard service for paying families who must wait an extra week to receive their loved one’s ashes.
He said: “We are held ransom. Cambridge is the only crematorium in the area and if payment is withheld, cremations can’t take place.
“If we want to use another crematorium, we need to add costs to the service fee for the family, not to mention the time it would take us to transport bodies more than 300km.
“The delay was passed off as if the ovens were faulty, or the technician was late or they [the municipality] were waiting for parts. They never openly admitted to a gas shortage.”
National Funeral Directors Association Eastern Cape chair Fred Darke said that when the account was settled and the gas finally arrived, the unit broke down, adding to the delay.
Another local funeral director said: “We experienced difficulties late last year when the suppliers were not paid and gas was not delivered.
“Fortunately, this was resolved but I’m sure we will experience a similar problem in the future.
“Any delay is traumatic for a family seeking closure after losing a loved one. The solution would be to privatise.”
Funeral directors say they had to put up with increasingly poor conditions at the crematorium which include, a gaping hole in the crematorium ceiling, no PA system to conduct the services, vandalised plaques with ashes exposed at the wall of remembrance, overrun gardens, no toilet paper or soap, poorly maintained walls and internal roads, and double bookings for chapel times.
Darke said these challenges were not unique to the Cambridge facility.
Darke said: “Included in these challenges are load-shedding and transportation costs.
“Overheads have increased while the economy has become stagnant.
“Vandalising of gravesites and tombstones is the order of the day and municipal workforce discontentment and lack of accountability seemed to be a bigger risk than suppliers not being paid because this leads to a lack of empathy towards grieving families.
“We tried to engage with municipalities to find resolutions but we find this to be a talk shop with no action and we have found ways of working within the current climate, pre-warning families of the situation.
“In Komani, our members have taken to doing roads and grass cutting in the cemetery.”
BCMM has 32 formal cemeteries of which 19 are still active, 247 informal (rural) cemeteries and one crematorium.
A report by the directorate for sports, recreation and community development for October 2023, tabled at the portfolio committee meeting last week, indicated that these facilities were besieged by repeated vandalism and theft due to lack of security and that an allocation of security guards to all facilities would be prioritised.
A deadline was not indicated.
A local funeral director said: “The municipality can support the important work we do by paying suppliers and maintaining the graveyards and the crematorium building. A quick walk through the crematorium, garden of remembrance and graveyard will tell its own horror story.
“Cambridge cemetery and Haven Hill are full and the graveyards are unsafe to visit with uncut grass making it difficult to find the graves.
“Funeral parlours play a pivotal role in assisting grieving families but we can’t play our role without the municipality playing theirs.”
Afrox Gas declined to comment and the municipality never responded to questions submitted.
