Brisk Business At Cemeteries

A visit to some cemeteries in the Accra metropolis by The Mirror has revealed that some hawkers are busily selling food on the tombs while new food and drinks joints have been opened for business.

Others too were found to be using the cemeteries as homes where they sleep and, also engage in all manner of immoral and unlawful activities such as commercial sex, drug peddling and grave looting.

According to the Chief Environmental Officer of the Metro Health Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr J. C. Aryeetey, constant police raids and court actions had not deterred people from invading the cemeteries. “Besides exposing themselves to possible health hazards, such people disturb families who have the graves of their deceased relatives looted”.

The health officer said the standard depth of graves in Ghana was six feet but added that there was a possibility that some corpses were buried in shallow graves due to the rapid growth of the population of the dead at the cemeteries. The scarcity of land, he said, had made it difficult to expand or build more cemeteries.

He said the activities of grave looters, especially, might pose health problems to other people who illegally decided to make the cemeteries their homes. For that reason, among other things, the police are sent in continually to arrest people who sleep in the cemeteries or engage in criminal activities there.

“Even recently the Osu police arrested some people who were sleeping at the Osu cemetery during a dawn swoop. We will also go round the cemeteries very soon and people who are doing business in and within their immediate surroundings will be handed over to the police if found to be operating their businesses illegally,” he said.

Mr Aryeetey said his outfit will continue to investigate and ensure that food/drinks joints and all businesses situated around cemeteries do not pose any health danger to the public. If found to have been established without authorisation, he said, the necessary action would be taken.

He condemned the sale of food and drinks in and too close to cemeteries, saying, “we walled those facilities to keep people away due to the possible health hazards. It is not for nothing that corpses are not kept at home but at the cemetery”. He said every facility serves a particular purpose and pointed out that the cemetery is home to the dead only “so I wonder why the living would want to go and sleep there even after persistent warnings and arrests”.

Mr Aryeetey appealed to the public to be mindful of where they bought food and drinks since unhealthy surroundings put the health of the people in danger. He warned the public not to buy food items and beverages sold around refuse dumps, places of convenience, open drains, inside cemeteries and dirty environments.

A source at the Nuisance Control and Enforcement Programme Unit of the Metro Health Department said there were three main cemeteries in Accra, namely Awudome, Osu and La Community cemeteries, and a fourth one, the Akwasa cemetery on the Winneba road. There are 35 of what the source described as small royal mausoleums in the metropolis.

“The AMA is making efforts to annex the Teshie and Nungua cemeteries in order to ease the pressure on its existing cemeteries. We also intend to bring them under our care to ensure that they are properly kept,” the source said.

According to the source, the unit had over, the years, had problems controlling the siting of businesses close to cemeteries. “People think that once a cemetery is fenced they can do anything, anywhere beyond the fence but that is not right because there are health hazards within and very close to a cemetery”.

Cemeteries are open to authorised people to bury their dead between 6 a. m., and 6 p. m., daily. Fees charged for burying one person ranges from ?60,000 to ?100,000