adminScores of mourners were on Monday afternoon left stranded when undertakers from Sunset Funeral Assurance, which shares premises with Masakhe Funeral Parlour, reportedly abandoned them following a misunderstanding over a coffin.
Although the two companies have a working relationship, it has since emerged that the incident in question involved Sunset Funeral Assurance and not Masakhe Funeral Parlour.
“Masakhe Funeral Parlour was not literally involved in the drama you wrote about except that Sunset Funeral Assurance had booked our hall to conduct the funeral service for their client. For the record we are not involved in the drama referred to, put differently we have no connection with the drama that your paper published,” said Masakhe Funeral Parlour in a statement through their lawyers Dube-Banda, Nzarayapenga and Partners.
Sunset managing director Mr Blazio Madliwa Chaka agreed that his company was the one involved in the dispute and not Masakhe.
“We have a working arrangement with Masakhe that we use their hall for funeral services for our clients. In this case we are the ones who provided the service and not Masakhe. It is unfortunate that these accusations have been directed to the wrong organisation,” said Mr Chaka in an interview at his office.
The mourners had accused the parlour of delaying them for nearly nine hours.
They had also castigated the parlour for cheating them and giving them a fake casket.
Mr Chaka admitted that there was a misunderstanding over those issues but accused the mourners of blowing the incident out of proportion.
“We do not deny there was a delay but we never dumped the mourners. It was just a delay and we kept communicating with the family. We even compensated the delay by buying food for the mourners. The problem was resolved and service was finally rendered.”
On the dispute about the coffin Mr Chaka said: “The problem was that the corpse was too big and could not fit in the standard coffin that the funeral policy arrangement permitted. We had to get a bigger coffin, a casket and this required the family to top up with $200.
“I even went there and explained the issue to mourners. It is also not true that the funeral cortege left at 12 midnight. Instead they left at about 8pm. The issue has been blown out of proportion,” said Mr Chaka.
The mourners were supposed to take the body of their relative for burial in Magunje area, Mashonaland West.
Online Reporter