Mayor Doria's Model of Cemetery Concession Includes to Charge a Fee for Graves

06/13/2017 - 11h39

São Paulo's City Hall plans to start charging an annual maintenance fee for those who have family graves in 22 public cemeteries in the São Paulo Capital.

The charge won't apply to those who have relatives buried in what are referred to as general plots (buried for three years until mandatory exhumation), but only to those who have family gravesites.

The fee, similar to what is charged at private cemeteries, is included in the privatization plan formulated by Mayor João Doria (PSDB) which lists 55 municipal assets and properties, among them the Pacembu and Anhembi stadiums.

The amount has yet to be determined, but it could be something around R$ 200 per year (US$ 61), and the fee would be used to remunerate the private companies that are to start managing the cemeteries under a concession model.

The fee, like the concession model itself, depends on approval by the Municipal Hall Council.

The legislation currently in vigor, signed in 1981 by the mayor at the time, Reynaldo de Barros, prohibits this kind of fee. Doria's administration argues that without the fee there will be no way to make the 22 municipal cemeteries financially attractive assets for private enterprise.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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