By Tauhierah Salie

The City of Cape Town’s annual tariff increase, of 4.6 percent this year, will apply to cemeteries. The increases will be implemented from Friday, 1 July 22. The City’s head of cemetery management, Recreation and Parks, Susan Brice, told VOC that raise is standard and remains in line with inflation.

“We saw no reason to not apply increase whatsoever, we also felt that any excessive increase would disadvantage our community,” said Brice.

According to Price, the most popular form of burial at Muslim allotments is the ‘berm grave’. This is limited to a head-stone only at a cost of R1 150, as of July 1^st. See a full list of increases here.

“It’s still a private grave but it has limited memorial works allowed on it. The way we lay out those graves, does not necessitate having wide pathways in between the rows of graves.”

“We then charge less, because we can actually do a more densified burial layout. The price of the grave has been discounted to encourage people not to put large memorial works and slabs on their graves,” she added.

These tariffs apply to the following cemeteries:

• Atlantis,
• Bellville,
• Constantia,
• Delft (Muslim
• Dido Valley,
• Durbanville,
• Goedehoop,
• Gordon’s Bay,
• Gugulethu,
• Hout Bay,
• Kuils River,
• Kleinvlei,
• Klip road, (muslim)
• Klip North,
• Klip West,
• Khayelitsha Gate 1,
• Khayelitsha Gate2;
• Kraaifontein;
• Langa,
• Lwandle,
• Maitland, (a second muslim allotment has been opened here.)
• Modderdam, (muslim)
• Mfuleni 1, Mfuleni 2;
• Muizenberg,
• Metro South East,
• Ocean View, (muslim)
• Ottery,
• Pinelands,
• Plumstead,
• Seaforth,
• Somerset West,
• Old Strand,
• Sir Lowry’s Pass,
• Rusthof,
• Vaalfontein;
• Welmoed, (muslim)
• Wallacedene cemeteries. (muslim)

A 2010/11 agreement remains where “one-and-a-half times” the normal tariff will be charged for Sundays and Public Holidays, to offset staff overtime rates. She reiterated calls to all faiths to conduct burials on weekdays to prevent overcrowding, where possible:

“We have made it necessary for people that want a Saturday burial, to pay 25 percent more. That simply discourages and encourages weekday burials. Despite that, we still have approximately 60 percent of our burials taking place on a Saturday.”

Brice said that penalty tariffs are “very rarely” applied and only follow engagement with burial societies or undertakers. These are usually charged if the grave has been prepared unnecessarily and where staff were left on-standby.

VOC