KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) – The special multi-stakeholder committee that is spearheading the renovation of the May Pen Cemetery in Kingston is in the process of finalising the budget and identifying funding for the project’s implementation.

The committee, which was appointed by Local Government and Community Development Minister Desmond McKenzie, is chaired by Kingston and St Andrew (KSAC) Town Clerk, Robert Hill.

Hill tells JIS News that a preliminary estimate “conservatively” puts the project’s implementation at a cost of $400 million.

He says that several funding sources, which were explored and proposed by McKenzie, are being considered by the committee as it moves to finalise these arrangements.

They include the Tourism Product Development Company (TPDCo); Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF); and the Culture, Health, Arts, Sport and Education (CHASE) Fund, as well as international funding partners.

Hill informs that the project’s scope and timeline have been established, noting that implementation is expected to be undertaken in three phases over an 18-month period.

Activities slated to be carried out include landscaping; rebuilding and reconstruction of the access road and other supporting infrastructure; restoration of the administrative offices and desecrated graves, with the latter to be undertaken in tandem with the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department; and streamlining of the cemetery’s records management system to facilitate accurate documentation of burials.

Hill says additional features being considered include construction of a columbarium to facilitate additional burials when the cemetery’s land space has been used up, and revisiting the overall manner in which interments are done.

The town clerk explains that consideration is being given to restricting the erection of elaborate headstones and mausoleums and resorting to straight burials.

This would entail double or triple plots, usually comprising vaults that can accommodate two or more caskets positioned on top of each other with average size headstones, as obtains in some privately operated cemeteries.

“This would facilitate better economic use of the land and ensure that we do so responsibly and, of course, with dignity and respect for the dead,” Hill says.

He adds that consideration is also being given to constructing a gazebo to serve as an area for quiet time by persons whose loved ones are buried in the cemetery.

Hill says landscaping, which will involve the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), is the first activity that will be undertaken.

“The Parks Manager at NSWMA, who is a trained agronomist, is (going) to examine the types of plants growing there, so that we can best determine how to extract those to be removed, without damaging the soil or graves,” he informs.

Hill says the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), which was approached to assist with the project’s implementation, has offered to help following completion of the landscaping.

“We are going to do an inventory of the persons who are buried at the May Pen Cemetery… and they want to assist in terms of cataloguing information from a historical perspective,” he adds.

The cemetery’s proposed renovation was announced earlier this year by McKenzie, who indicated that this was being done in a bid to encourage and facilitate increased usage of the more than 200-acre property for burials. To date, approximately 130 acres have been utilised.

He pointed out that the property’s upgrading is one of the major projects the ministry will be undertaking during the 2016/17 fiscal year

The cemetery, which is located between the Horizon Remand Centre on Spanish Town Road and Tivoli Gardens High School on Industrial Terrace, is owned and operated by the KSAC, for which McKenzie has portfolio responsibility.

The project committee comprises representatives from the Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation, National Solid Waste Management Authority, and the National Works Agency.