Work has started on the burial ground at the Matera cemetery but the sums for the expired graves and the new cemetery plan have not yet been recovered
A step forward such as the start of work on the burial field in the Pantano district cemetery and a series of unknowns that remain regarding the management of the sector. From the recovery of the sums owed to the Municipality for the expired graves to the delays in the construction despite the published notices of some reunions up to the need to define a new cemetery plan because the one in progress dates back at least 20 years ago in order to be able to adequately plan the future visa that the spaces for the new niches in the Pantano district are running out and the emergency could be around the corner. A matter of one or at most two years.
Yesterday (3 May) the Municipality limited itself to noting how «with the first clearing operations, work began to set up the burial field in the municipal cemetery of the “Pantano” district.
The field is foreseen by the cemetery master plan, approved in 2002, and will allow approximately 300 niches to be freed following the transfer of the same number of remains. In fact, the law provides that after thirty years the mortal remains can be moved, upon request to the heirs of the deceased, from the cemetery niche to the burial ground. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the works are expected to be completed by August” explain the Administration.
«An important work, which the city has been waiting for for a long time, given the chronic shortage of burial niches – comment Bennardi and Amenta – therefore after the necessary health opinion from the ASM, we wanted to speed up the start of the works by taking advantage of the good weather».
But evidently the issue falls within a much more complex context if it is true that only a few days ago in the city council councilor Toto noted the «failure to prepare the mortuary police regulation and the recovery of the sums due for the contracts of the burial niches which have already expired since 2011 for the new cemetery and in the 90s for the one in Via IV Novembre. Overall figures equal to approximately 10 million euros.” Numbers which, if not recovered, could become, this is the fear expressed in a more or less veiled manner, even a damage to the treasury. Furthermore, there is the issue of reunions to be resolved and there is the need to define what to do in an average time because the spaces for the future are running out.
The burial field is a step, certainly a first but evidently not exhaustive in a complex and delicate situation which evidently cannot be joked about. In a sector in which the emergency could absolutely not be tolerated given its delicacy.
