The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
BULAWAYO city health department has expressed concern on reports that some unscrupulous funeral homes are using their vehicles to smuggle in goods from South Africa.
Over the past weeks there has been speculation that hearse drivers were hiding groceries inside coffins with the bodies they will be transporting from neighbouring South Africa.
South Africa is the fifth worst-affected country globally in terms of coronavirus cases with over 380 000 confirmed cases and close to 6 000 deaths.
Social media has also been awash with people alleging that some of the bodies that were being transported were of Covid-19 victims thereby exposing the communities to the deadly global pandemic.
Although authorities have not confirmed these unscrupulous means of smuggling, the Bulawayo City Council health department has issued a warning saying its officials were already conducting investigations to determine the authenticity of the reports.
The local authority’s divisional environmental health officer, Mr Patrick Ncube said this was a matter they could not just ignore as it had the danger of exposing the public to the deadly pandemic.
“We have heard reports of people who are using either hearses of trailers transporting bodies from South Africa into the country to smuggle groceries. These are reports which we cannot take lightly because this Coronavirus is one which spreads easily within communities, if the necessary precautions are not put in place.
“What happens now is that if someone passes away outside the country there are necessary procedures that have to be followed in bringing the body to Zimbabwe and the actual burial this side, which is strictly monitored by health officials,” said Mr Ncube.
He revealed that only funeral palours were allowed to handle the body from neighbouring countries right up to the actual burial, emphasizing that if communities noted that a body could have come outside these licensed funeral palours they should immediately report them to authorities.
“These bodies should pass by the border where officials have to check the cause of death, be it natural causes or Covid-19. They then inform us, if the body is coming to Bulawayo, telling us which funeral palour the body is being transported to. These days we no longer permit that the body goes to lie in state at home but it should go to the funeral palour and from there to its burial place.
“If the body is that of a confirmed Covid-19 victim we also immediately put in place the necessary precautions so that by the time the body gets into the city, we immediately take over proceedings monitoring the entire process,” said Mr Ncube.
