Fight over burial site costs Gaoberekwe family
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday March 29, 2022 06:00
Four months later, the family does not know if they will ever bury their beloved one any time soon. Gaoberekwe died on December 21, 2021, and his body still lies at Joyce's Funeral Parlour awaiting the dispute regarding his burial site to be resolved. The Gaoberekwes only hope that the case will be resolved on April 2 when Justice Itumeleng Segopolo delivers a judgement that will resolve the impasse relating to his burial which has been pending for months now. “This issue has really traumatised our family and it has been dragged for months.
My uncle has stayed all his life at CKGR (Central Kalahari Game Reserve). He only went to New Xade to be nearer to the hospital because there are no health facilities at the CKGR. After we tried to resolve our issue with the council and agreed that we will bear the costs, now the Department of Wildlife and National Parks also became part of the issue by blocking us from burying him at CKGR. We don’t understand why they don’t want us to bury there when other people are burying at CKGR. The matter is draining us emotionally and physically and the community is also concerned about it,” the family spokesperson Smith Moeti told The Monitor on Saturday.
The problems of the Gaoberekwe family started when the children of the deceased who was registered under the social welfare programme at New Xade village requested that the body of their father be moved to CKGR where he has resided for years before he was taken to New Xade due to health conditions. The deceased's children want their father's burial rites performed at CKGR as per his final wish.
According to court papers, the family wants the deceased to be buried at CKGR while the wildlife department is against it. This is despite the fact that on March 9 Gantsi District Council (GDC) had an agreement with the family that it could take the body of the deceased to any place they wish to bury him but not with council’s costs. Gaoberekwe was registered as a destitute at New Xade, but he had lived at CKGR his whole life. According to the court order that was issued on March 9 by Justice Jennifer Dube, the deceased's children, Keitatotse, Dikakanyetso and Lesiame Pitseng were directed to remove the corpse of Pitse Gaoberekwe from the mortuary at which it is currently kept and to bury his body at their own expense within seven days of the date of the order. “Having contracted with the Joyce Funeral Parlour for the latter to receive and retain the corpse of Gaoberekwe, the applicant shall pay the former the fee payable for such retention and nothing else upon the corpse being removed in terms of this order. Each party shall pay its own costs of this application,” the court order stated.