Wiggins cemetery to be closed soon

Chesterville and neighbouring communities are going to have to look further afield to find a cemetery to bury their loved ones as the Wiggins Road cemetery, also known as Ezinkawini, is closed to new burials because it has run out of space . The cemetery was opened in the 1920s and has accommodated more than 50 000 burials.

According to the municipal manager for cemeteries, Pepe Dass, the Wiggins Road cemetery will only be open to families who wish to recycle or re-open graves. This is applicable to families who hold a 10-year lease agreement with the Cemetery Department.

“There is no land to conduct fresh burials. The Wiggins site has witnessed an influx of burials over the last few years because of the closure of other cemeteries within the metro region. We are conducting 15 burials per week-end. We simply cannot accommodate any more burials. It will be very unhealthy for both our employees and the surrounding communities,”said Pepe.

All is not lost though. A feasibility study to determine the possibility of re-opening the Loon Road cemetery will be conducted and a report is expected by the end of November. The cemetery, which is situated near Ridgeview Quarry, was used in the early 1900s by the people living in the old Umkhumbane.

If this proves to be unfeasible, then residents will have to pay more than they are doing at the moment to bury their loved ones in distant places.

The Mayor’s Vision
Our vision is that eThekwini Municipality should, and will become Africa’s most caring and lively city, due to our ability to grow the economy and meet the basic needs of our citizens and stakeholders. The city will achieve that by working together with citizens and stakeholders to produce an integrated development plan based on the needs of citizens, a budget which is determined by communities and an organisation which is designed to serve the needs of the people.

Challenges

• The city’s major challenge is to ensure that economic growth happens, and also to ensure that growth is not jobless, but actually generates jobs and employment for the majority of unemployed citizens. At the same time we want to ensure that people are provided with the necessary skills and opportunities to create jobs themselves.
• The city needs to extend services to a number of areas that are not reached at the moment, this includes some informal settlements, peri-urban areas, and even rural areas.
  m The third challenge is to fight poverty which affects the majority of our people who have been marginalised, that is women and children.
• HIV/AIDS is a major factor which affects not only the health services component of our city or country, but is a problem for everyone. The city is working with a range of role-players to rise above these challenges.
• Another challenge is that of promoting skills development to overcome the skills shortage which is greatly needed by our industries. People should be involved in the mainstream economy. As a city we also need to address issues of safety and security which are important for investor confidence and economic development.
• We need to ensure a shared vision with all stakeholders in the city. That includes business, unions, councillors, community organisations, etc. I feel that the absence of co-ownership and sharing in the development of plans has been a major problem, and that has prevented us as a city from moving in a positive direction.
• Another challenge is to sustain the process through ensuring that everyone in the organisation understands change and, in fact, aspires to change.
• The final challenge, in my view, emanates from the reality that as a city, our experience of area-based management and the participative budgeting processes is limited. In order to deal with this challenge, we are currently putting together a pilot programme in the western region from which we will draw lessons on area-based, budgetary planning process. Insights and learnings will also be drawn from the Trump and Cato Manor fast track projects.

Envisaged effects on staff
The restructuring of the way the city does its business will have an effect not only on citizens or stakeholders, but also on our own staff. A new way of doing business will require staff to learn new styles of leadership based on listening to citizens, understanding their cultures, which places a mission and a vision of the city above restrictive bureaucratic procedures, and a new organisation that will work together with citizens, and not for citizens.
I should also emphasise that the restructuring of the organisation will not result in any job loss, instead we will evaluate areas where we need more capacity for development and thus use our human resources wisely.

Socio-political impact

1. Community Outreach
   We have put together an extensive community outreach programme to consolidate a shared vision in the city. Working closely with Africa Vukani – RGA, a team of process consultants, Mr Thembinkosi Ngcobo, Executive Director of Culture and Recreation, is also involved in driving this process through the involvement of external stakeholders.
2. Amakhosi
   In my view, everybody in the Unicity will be affected by this new way of working, including amakhosi. I did indicate that rural areas will be highly prioritised for development. As such, amakhosi will play a pivotal role in working with the municipality, the citizens and other role-players to ensure a better quality of life for people living in the rural parts of our city.
   It is also important for amakhosi to ensure that people in rural areas feel part of the eThekwini Unicity, just like people living in the urban areas.
3. Organisational Realities
   While it is a reality that Durban is Africa’s best managed city, in order for the city to deliver according to its vision and commitment it is essential that we should change the way we do things. We now need to do everything we do in a way that is informed by the desire to satisfy the outcome of an improved quality of life.
   It is also true that our organisation suffers from a great deal of fragmentation which results in members working at cross-purposes. Effective change will now see the organisation working in a fully integrated way, with systems for accessibility, accountability, and responsiveness to public needs.