Four of Belize City's largest undertakers are threatening to go on strike because of what they call disrespect for the dead by City hall. The funeral directors are up In arms over reports that the Belize City Council is no longer selling grave plots at the Lord Ridge Cemetery, they are leasing it. That means your loved one will only be able to rest in peace for ten years. That's right, after that the plot would be re-used. Sounds outrageous, and that's the same thing they told us at City Hall, which flat-out denied the reports. But they should tell that to undertakers Felipe Coye and Louis Belisle who are clear on the message that's as given to them.
Keith Swift Reporting,
The Lord Ridge Cemetery: for almost all Belize City residents, it's their final resting place, and as the hardened wisdom of this seaside city tells us: even if you never owned a piece of land in your life, your six feet here is assured. But is it really? Not anymore say these undertakers:
Felipe Cope, Undertaker
"You cannot buy or own a new grave space, their plan is to lease you it for ten years. Your loved one uses that space and after ten years it goes directly back to the City Council. They can then sell it to anyone they feel like so in a way down the road you can't even go and visit your loved one if you wish to. There is no respect again for the dead. Most Belizean people have respect for our loved ones, they always go back to maybe brick the grave or paint the grave and on Mother's Day and Father's Day take flowers and thing like that. If this should go through then that is no more."
Louis Belisle, Undertaker
"Once we used to pay like $75 for a ground grave which is just take the grave and you put the casket in the ground and bury it. That used to be $75 and then they had another cost for $150 whereby you do the same thing but they brick the inside. Well that apparently doesn't happen anymore according to a sign at the City Council office. They are now charging $150 for leasing a grave space and I understand its for ten years and thereafter it goes back to government and then they can lease it again to somebody else. With this cost, $150, you can't put any tomb so they will just have to be buried there without any kind of mark to identify who is there or anything. The deceased, the loved ones who are buried there, you don't be able to identify who is there because as soon as one person is buried there, you can always dig it up and bury any who and that is kind of disrespectful."
And apart from disrespecting the dead, these undertakers claim that City Hall has also doubled the price to now lease a resting place at Lord Ridge. Want more? Well an independent third party confirmed to us that CITCO no longer allows you to tomb your loved one's grave - simply because they are only leasing it to you. All this has led these undertakers to give the City Council an ultimatum.
Louis Belisle,
"The poor people are the ones who will suffer eventually because we, the undertakers, are the ones who provide the service and so we will just go and pass the cost to them and its not everybody who can afford it. As it is right now many people who come to us for services sometimes they don't have the money and we have to know how to work with them to get their loved ones buried. So this is one of the things where it will affect us as well as the poor people."
Felipe Coye,
"I think the City Council really have to revise this because we are dead serious. There is 4 major funeral directors here and we plan to even go on strike. We are serious. The least will be two weeks and if it needs to go on we will and I mean close down shop."
Grave measures but then again these are grave concerns.
Again the City Council today flat out denied the reports saying burial plots are still being sold and the price has not been increased. We however spoke to Senior Counsel Dean Lindo who just this week buried a family member. He confirmed that he was unable to buy a plot and he was told he couldn't tomb it.
