Excessive spending on funerals must end

Doubtless, funerals are one of the country’s most valued traditions.

Traditionally, funerals provide an avenue for people to give reverence to the dead.

In our part of the world, funerals are taken as one of the rites of passage in life, the others being birth and marriage.

Like all rites of passage, funerals are given elaborate preparations to ensure a befitting departure for the deceased.

The typical refrain among some Akan societies is ‘abusua do funu’, literally translated as “families love corpse”, is characteristic of the attention paid to every detail in this rite of passage by Ghanaians.

In times past, the elaborate rituals were the hallmarks of such rites but, today, Ghanaians have turned funerals into big social events with big budgets.

To many, funerals are status symbols, and people are ready to go to every length to show off and be counted among the respected in society. Some families go to the extent of borrowing just to support their lavish spending.

From undertakers to funeral cloths, catering, hearses, souvenirs and pallbearers, bereaved families endeavour to outdo one another in the organisation of the final funeral rites of loved ones.

We have, sadly, turned solemn occasions like funerals into exaggerated and fun-filled social events while mourners embark on free for all boozing and feasting.

Most often, children of the deceased or close family relations are forced to take loans to meet the huge financial overlays dictated by exaggerated social funerals just to keep up.

The aftermath of such funerals are debts that need to be repaid at all cost, leaving some surviving spouses, children and other family members saddled with huge debts.

It is in the light of this that the Daily Graphic commends the decision by the Agogo Traditional Council in the Ashanti Region to curb lavish spending on funerals.

The Daily Graphic believes that the sweeping measures by the Agogo Traditional Council must be replicated by other traditional authorities. (See our front page on Wednesday, September 8, 2021).

Chaired by the Omanhene of the Traditional Council, Nana Kwame Akuoko Sarpong, the Traditional Council also directed that expensive widowhood rites should no longer be organised in the traditional area.

The Daily Graphic commends Nana Akuoko Sarpong for his foresight in leading the traditional council to issue the directive. We hope that other traditional areas will follow suit and also ensure that families do not go overboard in organising funerals for the departed.

This country has many challenges with regard to provision of potable water, electricity, roads, education, among others, and it will be worrying for society to look on helplessly while scarce resources are dissipated in such a manner.

Funerals must be sombre, respectful and befitting and we ought to keep them that way.