BULAWAYO residents have urged the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to rehabilitate the approximately 4km road from Gwabalanda to Luveve Cemetery Extension, which is in a deplorable state.
The cemetery is arguably the busiest in Bulawayo, with hundreds of mourners visiting the site daily with the final stretch of the road riddled with potholes.
Bulawayo United Residents Association chairperson Winos Dube said the road must be given the priority it deserves, adding that roads leading to cemeteries across the city needed special funding.
“It’s true that the road leading to Luveve Cemetery Extension is very bad and we always wonder what the council is doing about it. We want to see action being taken to make sure that the road is smooth,” Dube said.
“These roads that lead to cemeteries, we don’t see any reason why they do not have special funding since there is no credit that is granted when people are being taken to the cemetery. The deceased’s relatives will have paid cash to council, so I think we need action as residents. We have to make sure that the road is worked on, it must be given the priority it deserves because it’s in daily use every now and then.”
Bulawayo has a very poor road network with the city fathers previously revealing that 70% of the city’s roads need refurbishment.
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Apart from Luveve Cemetery Extension, other cemeteries in Bulawayo include Umvutsha, West Park, Hyde Park, Luveve, Athlone and Lady Stanley, which is the final resting place for prominent Bulawayo figures.
Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association executive secretary for engineering, Thabani Ndlovu, urged funeral parlours operating in Bulawayo to rehabilitate the road.
“Funeral parlours are making money from the residents of Bulawayo. When are they going to pay back to the community for their hard-earned policies that they have been paying for years and years?
“They can come together and work hand-in-hand with the city council and fix that road. It's a small stretch and they can fix it within a short space of time,” Ndlovu said.
Bulawayo mayor David Coltart, acknowledged that the roads are in a dire state, adding that the local authority has minimal resources to address the problem.