Sibongile Mashaba

Sibongile Mashaba

Soweto Funeral Undertakers Association (Sofua) members are up in arms over the relocation of the booking office for grave sites from Soweto to the Johannesburg city centre.

At a meeting held at Avalon Cemetery yesterday, the undertakers raised their concerns about a directive that the Soweto City Parks office was to be moved.

They said the move would inconvenience them because they would have to travel to the city to book grave sites.

Sofua chairman Jacob Motsepe said: "We do not understand why they are doing this. This is going to put a lot of pressure on us and our customers."

Motsepe claimed that the office had not given them notice of the move.

He said the only thing the association wanted was for the office in Soweto to operate again.

"This change will force us to increase package prices from R5000 a burial, and that is not how we had planned things.

"The price for a grave is currently R595 for adults and R295 for children and we do not want to increase it. Our customers come first and we cannot afford to put them under a lot of strain."

Topollo Mabona, a member of Sofua's disciplinary committee, said: "The decision taken is a temporary one and we will meet City Parks again next week for a permanent solution."

City Parks spokesman Ronnie Moloi declined to comment and said he still had "to talk to head office".