ECONOMIC WISDOM OF SOCIAL DISTANCING

In Ghana, funerals are a big deal to family and friends. In fact, sometimes society judges the dead on the worth of their funeral. The style in which the dead is celebrated is most times an indication that the life of the deceased is a life well-lived.

It is not news to hear or be involved in a discussion that approves of families borrowing huge sums of money to organize the funeral celebrations of a loved one. While some families look forward to recouping their debt from donations made during the funeral ceremony, others just cannot be bothered, all they want is to give their loved one a befitting burial. This is the reason most corpses are kept for months if not years to enable the family to saves enough money to celebrate their dead. In the case of some royal families, a special edifice is built for the dead either to lay the deceased in a state or bury the corpse in it as a sign of legendary.

But one may ask of what use it is to invest huge sums of money celebrating the dead when there are members of that same family who cannot afford 2 square meal a day not to talk of others who cannot pay their fees, rents, a utility like water, electricity, and garbage collection fee yet these people are all expected to all make contributions of substantial amount towards the funeral.

On March 15th, 2020 the President of the Republic of Ghana announced a ban on a social gathering which included schools of all levels, churches, mosques, and funerals to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus. He, however, emphasized that for a family who had already made plans to bury their loves may do so with a gathering not exceeding 25 persons.

One would have thought that it was a good time to cut down the cost of funeral celebrations but to my surprise, many families cancelled their plans in wait for a ban lift to have a big ceremony. Now the government had to spend money importing mobile morgues because our people had simply refused to bury under low-cost funerals to save money, time and other resources. At this point, I am wondering why as a people we seem to love the dead more than the living and wish to celebrate them regardless of the consequences. Let’s act wise, save cost and bury on low key even after the Coronavirus pandemic.

My brethren let us always be guided by what the good book says in Ecclesiastes chapter 6 verse 3 “A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off. (NIV)