The ManicaPost
Abel Zhakata Senior Reporter
BEREAVED families were duped thousands of dollars by unscrupulous undertakers and administrators at Mutare’s Yeovil Cemetery who sold them graves at the burial ground at exorbitant rates in a scandal believed to have started some years back.
Officially, the main Yeovil Cemetery is considered fully occupied but mourners with fat pockets were asked to fork out up to $3 000 to have their departed ones laid to rest at the exquisite graveyard.
After greasing the palms of undertakers and administrators, graves were dug out in carefully left out portions of the yard and the burials were done clandestinely.
To hide the vice, another grave is selected and paid for to council outside the main cemetery at very low rates which will be simultaneously filled up at the same time the actual burial will be taking place in the prime grave yard.
In council records, the deceased is said to be buried outside the main cemetery.
Town Clerk Mr Joshua Maligwa said the grave that was filled up with no corpse will be dug up again and sold to another family and the money pocketed once again.
“At the end of the day what we have in our records regarding the graves, their numbers and the deceased does not match. Complications then arise in situations whereby a family comes years later to locate a grave. In the absence of markers which might be removed by wild animals, families end up erecting tombstones on wrong graves in the event that they seek assistance from the office because the records are wrong,” he said.
Mr Maligwa said the local authority has gathered enough evidence and those implicated will soon face the music.
“A lot of people are involved in this scandal. We have collected evidence and we are working on the modalities. Some of the people who are involved in this filthy enterprise of defrauding mourners did not want to go on leave.
“They did not want to take annual leave days because they feared that if they go away, the scum will be exposed. Instead of comforting relatives who would have lost their loved ones these people actually stole from them. That’s un-African,” he said.
