Cemetery jam: Ghanaians must cremate the dead - AMA

The Public Health Director of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly Dr. Simpson Anim-Boateng is advocating for Ghanaians to start cremating their dead so as to help city authorities manage land.

Dr. Anim-Boateng whose concerns were particularly directed at the people of Accra said the AMA is finding it difficult to find space for building a new cemetery in Accra.

“There is hardly a decent space in the public cemeteries in Accra. I’m talking about the ones you know, Awudome, La and Osu and we can’t even find one good stretch of land we can allocate for the purposes of burials,” he told Peace FM.

The existing public cemeteries were all declared congested over a year ago by the Assembly.

According to cemetery workers, bodies of people who were buried several years ago have to be exhumed (illegally) to make way for fresh burials in recent times.

In other cases, the dead are buried in between grave spaces and on top of other people’s graves as a result of the congestion.

Dr. Anim-Boateng said in order to move away from the “stress of trying to find space at all cost” to bury dead people, people should request for cremation instead.

He said: “I think people should start asking to be cremated instead of letting their bodies go through such torment after death. The land issue is a big one, but it won’t become that serious if there is no pressure on the cemeteries.”