Fatfoil

Hi Platform members,

I have lost my Father due to covid related issues in July last month.

Based on his humble request to be criminated when passing away, I and my family made sure we respect his wishes.

We then decided to use "The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality crimination centre (Pretoria West Crematorium) for the proceedings of the ceremony and crimination of my late father.

We had issued our own "Urn Box" for his ashes to be inserted in and was going to place my Fathers ashes at the centre as they have allocated storage a family could use upon request.

We had asked to keep his ashes at the centre as the plan was to lay him to rest at his village home in Venda but because of the current COVID restrictions with regards to travelling, we opted to do those proceeding at a later stage (In one month or two latest)

However on Saturday 13/08/2021 around 7:45, as we were going to house our late Father on the wall of remembrance, we found a lot of discrepancies that have left our family shattered, to say the least.

Initially on arrival when my father was cremated on 15/07/2021. We and the presiding funeral parlour brought in pre-selected ash remain urn that we had purchased and selected and handed it over to the crematorium operations team. This was successfully done.

Post our fathers funeral sadly, we lost our sister on 14/07/2021 and some main family members also acquired COVID and could not collect our remains until this past Saturday ( 13/08/2021)

Sadly to our shock and horror we met with Keagile who handed us our remains on request-but with no acknowledgement and signing from their side to confirm who has received the ashes ( as next of Kinn/ family and/ or executor as is required by the state of law). We received his certificate of cremation but noted that we DID NOT receive our father’s remains in the issued family urn/ ash box.

At first, we were unsure buy upon in investigation and engagements with Keagile the senior manager and Operations manager (name Unknown) with ourselves and the parlour (Majekete) we found out that:

Our father’s remains have been culturally disrespected and tampered with so much such that we do not know at all if the remains truly belong to our father as no other DNA tests can be further done to ascertain our need to know the truth.

We also found that the urn we issued was not the correct one and was nowhere to be found as it was indeed sold to another desperate family who did not have an urn upon the confession of the Administrator (Ms Mpho) only later in the day.

This was apparently the week preceding where she had hoped to quickly replace it. Sadly the replacement was not done on our arrival. The conduct of the administrator( and partners where proved) leaves very little to be desired and I can believe she has not done this single-handed as the ashes in the urns must be removed by *****s from the original case in order to sell them. No additional proof can be given to us that these ashes belong to our loved one. Even the white stickers issued at operations are not included to further assist us. We ourselves found gaps in the entire process of confirmation- starting from cremation/ collection/ storage/ receipt of ash boxes and the related.

There are many sad inconsistencies that we picked up and have submitted a formal complaint to the manager by telephone call Mr Pillay still no word came back from the senior. Ms Keagile was also present at the site with Mpho and the Operations Manager at the offices to hear our case, which we appreciated. To date, no official word from Mr Pillay as senior manager has come back to us and or the family via Keagile who has been in constant communication with us.

The disregard of the sacredness of our ashes by their day to day worker/s has not only violated our rights but the involved Ms Mpho(and/or others) have left us in more pain.

The family feels that the ashes do not even belong to our father as the process to confirm exists not as we seek solace.

We ask for feedback and a way forward to establish what will happen with our concerns and complaint raised. We further submit a request to escalate this matter of concern and complaint to the seniors of Mr Pillay who may be able to revert back to us. The deafening silence of the crematorium leaves us even more traumatised and find the way in which this case is handled to be very unbecoming as the days progress.

We as a Family have sent multiple emails with one email response as an apology and that letter does not confirm anything.

This has hurt my family deeply and we need clarification and an honest answer as to what transpired.

Regards.

FM