Undertakers threaten home affairs offices
No burials without certificate of competence
Funeral undertakers have threatened to embark on a nationwide shutdown of all department of home affairs offices from tomorrow because of the pinch undertakers are feeling financially.
This, according to the body representing undertakers, is due to the department’s failure to amend its regulations on the certificate of competence (COC) that gives them the right to remove bodies from mortuaries, hospitals and forensic laboratories for burial.
The undertakers cannot register any death at home affairs without the COC, which is issued by the department of health. They cannot book burial sites or cremate bodies without the COC.
Unification Task Team (UTT) spokesperson Muzi Hlengwa said home affairs had no mandate to demand a COC.
“The COC belongs to the department of health and it is doing a good job on it.
“We can’t have another department wanting to be responsible for the COC. Department of home affairs has nothing to do with the COC. They don’t even understand what it is or what its requirements are,” said Hlengwa.
“The COC is preventing small parlours from rendering their services. This will lead majority of black-owned businesses to ruin.
“Most of them cannot afford to own their own mortuary services. If small parlours close, we could have more than 300,000 people out of work. We want everyone to make a living and create employment,” said Hlengwa.
Hlengwa said they had their last meeting with home affairs on April 6 with the department’s director-general.
Last month eight executive members staged a sit-in at the home affairs head offices in Pretoria, demanding to have a meeting with director-general Livhuwani Makhode.
Police were called in to remove them but they refused to leave until they handed their list of demands to Makhode.
Department of home affairs spokesperson Siya Qoza said the department had given provision for funeral undertakers to temporarily conduct business relating to home affairs registration of deaths.
“In an engagement with the leaders of the UTT in Pretoria on April 6, home affairs director-general Tommy Makhode [Livhuwani] undertook to consult the department of health and the SA local government association to seek their inputs in revising the regulations and implementation of issues related to the management of human remains.
“All the parties have agreed to continue working together to find a lasting solution to these challenges.
They have agreed that the department of home affairs can issue provisional designation for funeral undertakers to conduct their business for a period of 12 months, while the parties find a lasting solution,” said Qoza.
Qoza said as part of this agreement, funeral undertakers should produce a proof of storage lease agreement and a COC of the person leasing the premises.