Bagbin advises against expensive funerals

Naro [UW/R], Jan. 3, GNA - Mr Alban Bagbin Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West on Monday denounced the adoption of expensive funerals and the preservation of corpses in mortuaries for several weeks before burial.

Such a practice he said was not only 'alien' to the people of the area, but was also stretching the relatives of the dead financially as they were compelled to perform the funerals according to some set standards in their communities.

Mr. Bagbin made the point at Naro in the Nadowli District of the Upper West Region during a victory celebration that was organised in his honour for retaining his seat as MP for the area.

He said funerals in certain regions of the country were commercialised and so the people could afford to incur high expenditures as they could recoup their money, "but in poverty stricken areas like ours we cannot afford to be spending so much when we cannot even afford to pay our children's school fees".

People in some areas of the Region now preserve their dead bodies in mortuaries, sow special mourning clothing and provide expensive feeding against the previous system of burying their dead immediately with simple and inexpensive funerals.

On the development of the constituency, he said he would tackle the fundamental problem of education, encourage enrolment in the pre-schools as the basis for the development of education.

Mr Bagbin, who is also Minority Leader in Parliament said in the first four years of President Kufuor's regime, the Minority was lenient to them because they were fairly new, but this time round the opposition would open up and be more critical than before.

He called on all stakeholders and the media to assist the Minority in Parliament to put the government on its toes for the development of the entire country that would benefit every individual.