PM: TAKE BETTER CARE OF CEMETERIES

Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley wants to see a national project established to facilitate the beautification and upkeep of public cemeteries in this country.

PM Mottley yesterday raised concern about the state of the public cemeteries, while delivering the feature address at the official opening ceremony of the chapel and offices of the privately owned Mount Pleasant Memorial Gardens at Pleasant Hall, St. Peter.

“It hurts me every time I have to go to a public cemetery and see that we have not reached the level of maturity to recognise that we have a national responsibility to maintain, beautify and upkeep that space that has become home for our family who have gone before us,” she said.

While noting that Government’s finances are limited, she alluded to society doing more to keep those spaces in pristine condition.

“I use this opportunity to be able to speak to the country and to ask those from the clergy to the private sector, to those of us in Government, to recognise that we really are judged by how we treat our elders – and not just those who are alive, but those whose memory we call upon to guide us in so many things on a daily basis. And if that is the case, then I believe that as a society, we must determine that there are some things that we must keep behind us and not ahead of us, and one of those is the beautification and upgrading of our public cemeteries,” she stated.

Referring then to the Mount Pleasant Memorial Gardens, she said that Ember Investment Corporation, which is responsible for the St. Peter venture as well as the Coral Ridge Memorial Gardens, has shown the country “entirely what is possible”, so far as cemetery development is concerned.

“I hope therefore, those of us within the public sector would see it as a sign that would give us encouragement that we can do the same thing. But in doing it, that we treat to it not as a Government project, because it is fundamentally not just about Government alone. It is a national project because it is rooted first in how we see ourselves, our family, the process of death and transition and we believe ought to be appropriate going forward,” the PM stated.

Meanwhile, she also lauded Ember Investment for following through with the plan to develop Mount Pleasant. While lamenting the length of time it took, almost 15 years to get the project from conception to fruition, PM Mottley said she is pleased that the developers approached her Government in 2018, for assistance in dealing with the obstacles preventing the investment from becoming a reality.

“For us as a Government, it represented confidence on your part... You had to take a decision as to if you would be prepared to invest money against the backdrop of all that we were managing to do economically with the restructuring of our debt, and the repurposing of where we wanted this economy and this society to go. And I am grateful to you on behalf of the nation that you had that confidence, that in spite of the cloudy atmosphere, that you could see clearly into the future that this country would find its way back and the investment of $12 million here would be something that you would realise a return upon, because of that confidence,” the PM stated.

Noting that there was a time in this country when it was felt that cemeteries and crematoriums were the purview only of Government, she said Ember Investment has shown, and successfully so, that is not the case.

“We all know different now and I believe as we reflect on other aspects of services within our community and society, we can recognise that it is that partnership between the regulatory framework being provided amply by Government and the private sector working along with that regulatory framework and within that regulatory framework, can make the difference,” she added. (JRT)