Ghana’s Mortuaries and Funeral Facilities Agency (MOFFA) is set to deploy personnel to all districts across the country to monitor funeral activities and help prevent the mistreatment of corpses.
The personnel will be equipped with mobile phones and motorbikes to enable them to move quickly to funeral grounds, document suspected cases of abuse and monitor compliance with regulations governing the handling of corpses.
Executive Director of MOFFA, Francis Ennin, told JoyNews’ Stephen Mensah that the deployment forms part of measures to strengthen oversight of Ghana’s funeral industry and protect the dignity of the dead.
“We’ll be giving them mobile phones and motorbikes so that wherever there is a funeral activity, they may be going there,” he said.
He added that the personnel would take photographs and videos of funeral activities and that their presence could serve as a deterrent to people who mishandle corpses.
“They may be taking pictures and videos so that whoever misbehaves, the person may not know the presence of MOFA personnel there. They will be deployed into all the districts in Ghana,” Ennin said.
The planned deployment follows the establishment of regional offices by the agency, with district-level operations expected to begin once additional personnel are recruited.
Ennin said MOFFA would initially focus on parts of the middle and southern sectors of the country, where the agency believes inappropriate practices involving corpses are more prevalent.
“If you go to some parts of this country, if you go to northern part of this country, people will not behave in such a manner. So, we are concerned about the southern part or the middle up to the southern part of Ghana, where these things are common,” he said.
According to him, deploying officials to funeral grounds would help create awareness and discourage practices that violate the dignity of corpses.
MOFFA is also proposing changes to existing legislation to introduce punitive measures against people who mishandle corpses.
Ennin said the agency was preparing a draft document outlining the proposed changes, including provisions that would allow sanctions to be imposed on offenders.
“The legislation, we need to amend some portions of it so that we can fix in some punitive measures on people who handle corpses and do all sorts of things,” he said.
He explained that the draft is currently being considered by a committee and would subsequently require approval from the MOFFA board and the Ministry of Health before it could become a national working document.
The proposed legislative changes are intended to strengthen the legal framework governing the handling of corpses and funeral activities.
MOFFA says the measures form part of broader efforts to ensure that corpses are treated with dignity and that funeral facilities and activities comply with Ghana’s laws and regulations.
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