Eyewitness News reports that a family in Tshwane had to fork out money to hire equipment to dig a grave so that they could bury their loved one this past weekend.

This was as a result of a pay dispute between the City of Tshwane and a service provider responsible for digging graves in the municipality’s cemeteries. Apparently, the service provider had not been paid for over a month's work and as a result, had downed tools. Rhouda Diamond said when she went to the Lotus Gardens Cemetery to check on her grandfather's grave, she was told it had not yet been dug due to a strike by gravediggers. "That lady told us that she can only assist us if we bring our own TLB [Tractor Loader Backhoe] then she showed us a site," she reported. Diamond said the family then leased its own TLB to dig the grave. The City of Tshwane said it was working on resolving the payment dispute with the service provider.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Thabiso Goba at EWN

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