"I quit my job after learning about coffin scam”

While residents are still in shock after learning of people who make a living by digging up graves and trading in body parts of buried people in Vhembe, another scandal of funeral parlours that trade in recycled coffins has surfaced.

In an exclusive interview with Limpopo Mirror, a former employee at one of the local funeral parlours has revealed that he left his job of working as a driver after learning about a scam of coffins that were being removed from graves and retraded to bereaved families.

The former driver, who cannot be named for fear of victimization, said, "I quit my job middle of last year after I learned about this shocking practice. I did not know about this scam until the time I confronted one of my colleagues, who was responsible for digging graves for this particular funeral parlour that I was working at.”

He said he was wondering why his colleague was always “loaded with cash”, even many weeks after they had received their salaries, and decided to confront him about it. "To my shock, he told me that he was part of a scheme that digs up graves and removes the coffins of the deceased we bury. He told me that the owner of the funeral parlour was aware of this practice."

He added that his colleague told him that they dug up the graves a week after the funeral, took the coffins and left the bodies in the graves. The driver said his former colleague told him they only targeted expensive coffins. He was told the group involved in this scam shared R10 000, which they were paid by the owner of the funeral parlour.  

Everything would then be cleaned and re-traded, sometimes to a whopping amount of R40 000 each, he said.

The former driver, who is now self-employed, claimed his colleague started having mental problems immediately after quitting his job. "He quit the job two weeks after I left," said the former driver. When asked why he had quit, even though he was not involved in the scam, he said it was against his conscience.

Mr Sam Ntshauba, the founder and owner of Nzhelele Funeral Services, expressed shock and dismay about the allegations. "For a coffin to be recycled, it needs an expert or people who work with them. I have heard about these allegations before, but I never took them seriously. I thought it was a lie. In my 20 years of experience of running a funeral parlour, I never thought it was possible to recycle coffins, but I can't rule it out," said Ntshauba.

Ntshauba, who is an executive member of the South African Funeral Practitioners Association, said it was difficult to deal with some of ill-disciplined practitioners who were not members of the association.

Pastor Avhasei Ramalida of the Lutheran Church said residents of Vhembe should stop investing more money in graves, to avoid being taken for a ride. "I think our people are inviting these scams, because they spend a lot of money on graves. Unfortunately, there are funeral parlours who realized that they can make quick cash from these families who are prepared to break the bank for funerals," said Ramaliba.

Date:29 October 2017

By: Ndivhuwo Musetha

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