The Pain Of The Business Of Death

It is a thriving business in Africa that inevitably everyone will be involved in. It creates entrepreneurs by the score but is plagued by poor regulation, fraud and theft. This is the rough, tough and unpredictable business of burying the dead.

- Yonela Mgwali

A hearse arrives at 6AM on a chilly Wednesday morning in Paulshof, a suburb in the north of Johannesburg; relatives weep as the coffin is carried into the house. At the gate is a red carpet and cars galore. This is no ordinary funeral. It’s the burial of Peter Zulu, the man famous for his son, Gugu Zulu, a racing driver who died while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

There are hundreds here and they have come to mourn at vast expense.

This is one of nearly half a million funerals that happen every year in South Africa alone. The business of death is worth an estimated R9 billion ($700 million).

It is thriving but plagued by the lack of regulation and crookery.