Ghana’s Mortuaries and Funeral Facilities Agency (MOFFA) is planning to deploy personnel to all districts across the country to monitor funeral activities and help prevent the mistreatment of corpses.
The initiative is part of efforts to strengthen oversight of Ghana’s funeral industry and ensure that corpses are handled with dignity and in accordance with the law.
According to MOFFA, the personnel will be equipped with mobile phones and motorbikes to enable them to move quickly to funeral grounds, monitor activities and document cases where corpses are allegedly mishandled.
“We’ll be giving them mobile phones and motorbikes so that wherever there is a funeral activity, they may be going there,” Mr Ennin said.
“They may be taking pictures and videos so that whoever misbehaves, the person may not know the presence of MOFFA personnel there. They will be deployed into all the districts in Ghana.”
Mr Ennin explained that the agency has already started establishing regional offices, with the district-level deployment expected to follow once the necessary personnel are recruited.
He said the presence of MOFFA officers at funeral grounds could also serve as a deterrent to people who engage in practices that compromise the dignity of corpses.
“If you go to some parts of this country, if you go to the 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.
Mr Ennin added that MOFFA is preparing proposals to strengthen the laws governing the handling of corpses, including the introduction of punitive measures for offenders.
“The legislation, we need to amend some portions of it so that we can include some punitive measures on people who handle corpses and do all sorts of things,” he said.
He explained that the agency is currently working on a draft document containing the proposed changes. The document will be considered by a committee before being submitted to the MOFFA board and the Ministry of Health for approval.
