Parkop suggests cremation due to shortage of land

By Rebecca Kuku
THE National Capital District Commission has no plans of acquiring new land for cemeteries, Governor Powes Parkop says.
Parkop said the commission would not be getting new land for cemeteries due to the shortage of land and the high demand to expand the city boundaries for development.
“If we keep on acquiring land for the dead, we will just continue on and on for generations. Eventually, there will be no more land to develop for the living,” he said.
Parkop said people should therefore start thinking of cremating bodies.
“Or those who do not wish to cremate must take their loved ones back home and bury them on customary land,” he said.
He said culturally, Papua New Guineans kept their deceased loved ones with them.
“In some cultures, they put their loved in caves while in other cultures, bodies of deceased loved ones were kept in their homes,” he said.
“So cremation should not be difficult as it was our culture long before Christianity came to our shores.”
He said cremation would cut down funeral expenses and urged city residents to consider it because the Nine-Mile cemetery was almost full.
Parkop also said a fence would be put up around the cemetery to stop the vandalising and defacing of headstones.