Prisoners eyed for cemetery clean-up
Published:Friday | July 16, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
PRIME MINISTER Bruce Golding wants to take another shot at using prisoners to clean and maintain the May Pen Cemetery.
"We are going to have to revisit that whole programme," Golding said yesterday, in reference to an experiment to use grant funds and prison labour to clear the heavily vegetated burial ground.
Prisoners were last utilised in the maintenance of the cemetery in 2003 but were withdrawn by the correctional services because of security concerns.
Golding, along with Health Minister Rudyard Spencer, Kingston Mayor Desmond McKenzie and Town Clerk Errol Greene, toured the dilapidated facility yesterday.
The prime minister expressed concern about the state of the cemetery.
"The people who are buried here are the forbears of those who would want them to rest in their final resting place in dignity, in a serene and comfortable environment," Golding said.
Skulls everywhere
Last week, the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation, the municipal authority, was forced to rebury skulls and other bones strewn across sections of the cemetery. Some bones were removed from shallow graves by scavenging animals, May Pen staff told The Gleaner. Some tombs have also collapsed.
The KSAC has since ordered that no graves should be dug fewer than six feet deep. The corporation has also commenced a programme of clearing the more than 200-acre cemetery.
The prime minister also said the Government may allocate unused sections of the cemetery to private operators.
"It wouldn't be just a public cemetery, it could be a public-private partnership," Golding said.
May Pen Cemetery is the final resting place for many of Jamaica's greats, among them cricket legend Collie Smith. In recent years, it has become the burial ground mainly for persons of modest means.
Over $9 million has already been spent on the clean-up of May Pen Cemetery which started last month.