​The City of Joburg has identified the indigent burials facilitated by Social Development Departments as an essential service.

The decision to continue the service follows the announcement by of the 21-day national lockdown by President Cyril Ramaphosa's on 24 March 2020 announcement in response to the COVID19 pandemic.

The Social Burial Policy seeks to provide indigent families with a dignified burial and to minimise the need for paupers' burials in the cases where the next of kin are unknown. The social burials are provided within reasonable and available means and facilitate by Social Benefits Unit in the City's Social Development in partnership with City Park and Zoo. The department has contracted City parks whose role is to facilitate the burial process by contracting undertakers after indigent families have been assessment by social workers eligible to benefit from the indigent burial.

City Parks contracts undertaker services which provides the family with storage of body, a coffin, transport of the body, a family car, a registration of death and  in the case where the body has been taken to a non-contracted service provider to remove and cover the storage costs (limited to 3 days).

Prior to the introduction of this policy the only option available to the poor was the paupers' burial. However, the City's Social Development Department discovered some limitations of the pauper burials.  This means that in the event that the person dies outside of the hospitals the burden lies with the indigent family having to use private mortuary, which many families cannot afford.  The costs of burial inevitably increases and become even more unaffordable due to escalating storage fees while the family tries to secure funding for the burial. The indigent seeks to address the above challenges though the Social Burial Policy.

MMC responsible for Health and Social Development, Eunice Mgcina this week encouraged indigent families to work through their ward councilor in order to benefit from the social burial policy. The following protocol should be followed by the Ward Councilors:

Upon being inform about the death the ward councilor should:

Step 1:

The ward councilors should send an sms /WhatsApp with the address to the following number 0824679257/082 5593767

Step 2:

The ward councilor should advise the family present themselves to the nearest police station to get  2 affidavits,  the first  confirming their  socio-economic status and the second giving permission to bury.

Step 3:

Social Worker will contact the family to complete and assessment and submit documents to JPCZ

Step 4:

The family will be informed about the date and time of the burial

In line with government's measures to encourage social distancing and arrest the spread of the coronavirus, Joburg City Parks and Zoo has put in place several conditions around burials and cremations.

Funeral undertakers have been officially informed to observe all the listed measures and to communicate to the bereaved families.

The measures include:

• Funerals booking offices will be opened from (Monday – Friday) with skeleton officials.
• Burial & cremation bookings can be processed within a 24-hour notice period.
• Burials will be conducted daily in line with pre-booking processes.
• Re-open (re-use of graves) applications are subjected to a 48-hour notice period.
• All burial procession should have less than 50 people gathering at any given time.
• Cremations services are limited to less than 40 people at the chapel and will be undertaken on a daily basis.
• Funeral ushering services will be in place.
• TLBs will be made available to assist with grave closures during this period ONLY.
•  Grave tracing processes has been put on hold during the lockdown period.
• The public is encouraged to adhere to all health and safety measures (e.g. hand sanitizers) that are in place and practice social distance during all funerals processes.