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Cemetery situation a major concern for M&CC
A section of the overgrown Le Repentir cemetery
The Le Repentir Cemetery was regarded as being in an “unacceptable and disgraceful state” on Tuesday when the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown met at City Hall to conduct their final statutory meeting for the month of February.
At that forum it was pointed out by Mayor Hamilton Green that urgent measures must be put in place to address the state of the facility which has been notably losing patronage over the years.
The cemetery, which covers 201 acres of land, of which 20 acres was given over to aid solid waste management, is overwhelmed by overgrowth which makes efforts by relatives to locate their loved ones buried there a near impossible task.
According to the Mayor, instead of using the cemetery, many citizens who reside in the city prefer to travel to out-of-town locations to inter their loved ones.
The Mayor disclosed that as part of the municipality’s attempt to restore the cemetery to an acceptable standard, a proposal was made to involve relatives of the departed to assist with the maintenance of the facility, a move which did not gain much support and ultimately fell through.
And then there was the attempt, the Mayor disclosed, to encourage undertakers to take possession of sections of the cemetery with the expectation that they would maintain same.
However, this was another proposal that the municipality did not see to fruition, leaving the cemetery in the dilapidated state it remains in.
The municipality in its 2008 budget has allocated a total of $28 M to maintain the cemetery, an amount it is expected to garner through property taxes, market fees and other avenues of revenue collections.
In the meantime, the municipality has been in discussion with a Barbadian contractor who was expected to travel here for further discussions on his proposals for a crematorium.
Deputy Mayor Robert Williams in a recent interview with this newspaper pointed out that prolonging the life of the Le Repentir Cemetery indefinitely, in terms of offering burial space, may not be in the best interest of the municipality.
The move to allow the introduction of a privatised crematorium was highlighted by the municipality sometime ago with the expectation that a private contractor could better manage and maintain the facility and at the same time afford the municipality an additional revenue base.
But according to the Deputy Mayor, even before any construction of a crematorium commences there are a number of procedures which must first be taken into consideration.
He explained that the involvement of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Central Public Health Medical Board must first approve the plans before they could be implemented.
According to the Deputy Mayor, he is hoping that the requirements for the crematorium will be met in order to pave the way for its urgent implementation.
However, the City Mayor on Tuesday expressed some level of concern about the crematorium plan as he had not received word as to whether the contractor will continue discussions with the municipality even as he speculated that efforts could have been made to discourage the contractor.
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