– City Mayor concedes coffers empty, but families of the ‘Dearly Departed’ could help out from time to time

FROM a place of peace and tranquility where many a family member say their final good-byes to the Dearly Departed or pay them a visit on special occasions, the once iconic Le Repentir Cemetery is fast evolving into a thick forested jungle, its deep-rooted vegetation threatening to throttle the very graves in which they repose.
Back in March 2019, City Mayor Ubraj Narine, under previous administration, had put together a committee comprising five City Councillors to look into the proposed restoration of the Cemetery.

This sub-committee of sorts was put together to establish ways in which to better manage the maintenance of the cemetery’s grounds.
According to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC)’s plans, the entire cemetery was to have been fenced, the ground levelled, and the trenches palled off. The entire facility, so to speak, was to have been maintained and treated like one would a clinic card, so as to keep it up to standard.
All work towards repairing the cemetery were brought to the table, but to date, the cemetery remains an eyesore to the residents living in and around the La Penitence area and other neighbouring communities.

In a recent interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Mayor Narine made no bones about it that the Council lacks the finances to facilitate any form of rehabilitative work on the cemetery currently.

“The Council don’t have the resources to clean up the cemetery. However, we’ll just have to work with Central Government to put a plan in place,” he said, adding: “We do have plans and sketches for such, but we need money to do so.”

He also suggested that the relatives of the deceased could help out by taking responsibility for ensuring that the spaces in which their loved ones are buried are clean and well-kept.

“The same people who bring their dead there, if everybody work together and clean up parts of the cemetery, the cemetery can be kept clean,” the no-nonsense straight-talking Mayor Narine said. Under the Municipal and District Council Act 28:01, the M&CC has the responsibility for establishing, maintaining and controlling burial grounds and crematoriums. Le Repentir Cemetery was first established in March, 1861. A road was later constructed through the cemetery to link the ward of La Penitence with Lodge, Wortmanville and Werk-en-Rust.

The first person to have been interred there was 45-year-old Antonio Gonzales, on March 15, 1861. As the old-timers would say, he was a Madeiran, having been born and raised in Madeira, Portugal.