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Bribery can even organise your future tomb
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An available grave at Karet Bivak public cemetery in Central Jakarta after the Jakarta Park and Cemetery Agency demolished a fictive tomb last Friday.
(kompas.com/Nursita Sari)
B
ribery is not only practiced when you want to enjoy special treatment or when you seek better public service, while you are still alive, but you can also bribe someone to obtain a better place for your tomb in the public cemetery after you die.
Such a practice was revealed by Didi, an officer at Karet Bivak public cemetery in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, who said that a cemetery maintenance worker had demanded Rp 1.5 million (US$114) from a lady, who had ordered land for her tomb.
“[The woman] admitted, she ordered it from a maintenance worker. She had to pay Rp 1.5 million,” said Didi as reported by kompas.com.
Didi explained that to have stocks of free tomb space, the cemetery maintenance worker replaced the names on tombs that had an expired “contract” with the Jakarta administration.
In Jakarta, lease of tombs have to be extended by relatives of the deceased every three years by paying certain fees to the administration so that use of the tomb can be extended for another three years, otherwise the tomb would be demolished and replaced by another.
Didi said a cemetery maintenance worker was replacing the names of expired tombs with fictive ones as preparation for sale.
Recently, Jakarta Park and Cemetery Agency had demolished a fictive tomb at Karet Bivak cemetery. On the tomb the name Sumarti was written, which was different from the name registered by the agency, Yusuf.
The person who ordered the tomb admitted that she ordered it for her own body when she would pass.
Didi claimed that he knew nothing about such practices, saying that there were not enough officers to monitor tens of thousands of tombs in the area. “There are 50,000 tombs in the cemetery. It is unlikely they can all be checked,” he said, adding that there were 56 officers monitoring the 16.9-hectare cemetery. (bbn)
