Funeral Parlour Owners Protest And Give Government 14 Days To Reply. Some funeral parlour owners joined up on Wednesday to issue requests to six government departments.
Some funeral parlour owners joined up on Wednesday to issue requests to six government departments. They stated in detail how they thought the field should be operated. The National Funeral Shut Down group demonstrated a motorcade with coffins throughout Pretoria CBD, they also demonstrated at the Union Buildings.
The group wanted the law governing the industry to be relooked at. The funeral parlour representatives made their request to several departments such as Transport, Finance and Home Affairs. They had a problem with big funeral parlours being permitted to allocate their workers to register death certificates while the small funeral parlours not being permitted to do such.
Thokozani Dladla says, “When the government creates legislation and puts ownership automatically they’re excluding black people because black people don’t own anything. When you create legislation and put ownership, they’re excluding black people and that legislation is at the core of the funeral industry because that’s where we are issued the certificate of competence in local government.”
They also want the small mortuaries to also be acknowledged by the Department of Trade and Industry and to be thought about when budgets are being issued. A memorandum was given to an official in the office of the Presidency, Vincent Ngcobo. The government has been given 14 days to reply to the request.
by Alexandra Ramaite
