Disturbing trend of tombstone theft emerges

 

Suppliers of tombstones in Palapye fear that they will soon be out of business. This is because there are people who steal tombstones at graveyards on a weekly basis, and in the eyes of those who bought the tombstones, the suppliers are chief suspects.

This week, people of Palapye expressed disappointment at how they pay huge sums of money when installing tombstones for their deceased loved ones only for some cold hearted individuals to go to the graveyards and steal, even destroy the structures.

They wondered how any normal person could steal a tombstone, and were quick to suspect that suppliers are playing them dirty!

The people are convinced that those who know how to successfully install and uninstall the precious stones without damaging are the ones responsible. Added to that, they believe that the only people who can make away with the tombstones are those who have the know-how of erasing engraved names and replacing them with new ones.

Villagers believe that after erasing names of the deceased on the stolen stones, suppliers polish them to make it look like they are new and go on to sell the same product to the next available customer.

Speaking to this publication, a concerned Petoro Samson, who is manager at The Octo Granite Tombstones in Palapye, said they have observed with disappointment how their customers are busy pointing fingers at them.

“We are aware that the people are not happy and rightfully so, people are losing money, and they will soon stop installing tombstones and business will suffer. We are disappointed in those who steal the tombstones too, we cannot prove that it is some of us suppliers, but it is possible.

“I advise people to use cages as a security measure when they install tombstones. Also, I advice that they buy at reputable companies who will use quality material when installing the stones because quality material does not get stolen easily, uninstalling it is hard and almost impossible,” said Samson.

Kago Rebabonye of Base Africa Granite Tombstones said suppliers who steal their work after selling to customers do not understand their business. The business he says, is in people seeing the beautiful work that a supplier did, that way more customers come their way.

What Rebabonye has realised is that almost anyone is in the business of selling tombstones, some are not registered companies, and this breeds lawlessness. Such companies are only after profits and breaking all rules, they sell low quality tombstones to clients.

“Customers should not be deceived by low prices, granite is very expensive and the moment one sees a company selling the product at very low prices, chances are that they are not doing something right. Investigate before pouring your money into that company because chances are that those are the same people who then go out and steal back what they sold,” he said.

Lisa Motlhageng of Majestic Tombstones said they have not had clients who came to them after their tombstones got stolen, they only heard that such happened in Serowe. “When we sell tombstones to clients, we always advise them to get a cage, this cage should be fixed to the tombstone so that when thieves try to steal, they are forced to take the whole structure out, including the cage,” she advised.

Reached this week, Palapye station commander Superintendent Molly Lebala-Moduke said they have not received any fresh complaints regarding stealing of tombstones in Palapye.

"The matter has not reached us, we only had cases about a year ago but not in the recent times, maybe the affected are yet to report,” she said.