Community group needs your support to help clean Westpark Cemetery

The Ward 88 community group is encouraging members of their community to join the mayor’s monthly clean-up initiative, A Re Sebetseng, to help clean Westpark Cemetery.

“The state of Westpark Cemetery is atrocious… There is a constant flow of litter, and while plant life is well looked after, there are always dead leaves and branches scattered everywhere,” said the group’s Felicity Gratz-Lawlor.

Due to the sheer size of the property, the City often has to rely on volunteers from the community to help cleaning operations.

Gratz-Lawlor continued, “As a community group, we try to clean as much as we can once a month with the mayor’s A Re Sebetseng initiative, which unfortunately rained us out in February, and even with a full team we hardly make a dent.”

The last time the group helped to clean up the cemetery they collected over 300 bags of litter and foliage.

Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo has deployed additional resources to address service delivery shortfalls at 13 of the City’s 32 cemeteries.

City Park’s maintenance units and appointed external contractors started to work over the weekend at Westpark Cemetery.

According to the department, their maintenance teams have cut large sections of overgrown foliage at the 100-hectare cemetery.

More intricate work around tombstones and the removal of grass is being undertaken by independent contractors.

Member of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development in the City of Joburg, councillor Nonhlanhla Sifumba extended apologies on behalf of Johannesburg City Parks and Zoo for the state of the City’s cemeteries.

She said, “I regret the state of neglect that is evident in the last resting places of the loved ones of the City,
“I had a meeting with the relevant operations personnel and requested that they resolve the backlogs as a matter of urgency.

It cannot be that this government makes a commitment to offering services with pride, and we have cemeteries looking like they did during the rainy seasons.”

Sifumba also said that she appreciates that some work had been cancelled due to heavy rains, but has pleaded with City Parks to adhere to the maintenance schedules.

“As graves are sacred, and belong to the families, I am appealing to families to maintain the graves of loved ones where possible, as the by-laws in the City place the onus on families to maintain damaged headstones, broken memorials, remove decaying plants and weeds, replace plaques and ensure that all graves are well kept.”

The A Re Sebetseng clean-up will take place on the morning of 21 April at Westpark Cemetery, West Park Road.

Details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/362116360816372/