Gone are the days when funeral services were solemn events where relatives and friends gathered to bid farewell to their loved ones.
Today, funerals are now big social events where the financial might and social status of the bereaved family is put to the test.
This is so because many mourners attend funerals with a lot of expectations from the deceased family in terms of how it is organised.
As a result, most bereaved families put a lot of resources into the organisation of funerals as they try their best to show off to, at least, meet the expectations of mourners and the dead as well.
In the process, some people order special cloth and food from caterers so they can have a buffet lunch or dinner after the burial.
This practice is a major shift from the previous style where family members converged on the house of the bereaved to prepare assorted food.
Some bereaved families even order canopies, chairs and sound systems as well as get pallbearers who come to display at the funeral grounds.
This practice, although foreign to our culture, has created a whole new business opportunity for many people. Individuals and companies have taken advantage of the situation to provide products and services, which they sell to this new breed of fan-loving funeral organisers.
This has made the dead a source of business unlike before when it was associated with only grieve and even debt.
Industry in perspective
Thousands of people and institutions across the country are making a living from the dead.
Such people and institutions range from the financial service providers to those in the emerging funeral service industry.
The industry, which thrives on the heartaches of others, comprises varied businesses, of which the dominant and commonly known ones are the funeral service companies and the coffin makers.
But in between these businesses are smaller service providers whose source of livelihood is also from teh dead.
Among them is 25-year old Benjamin Aidoo, an undertaker and a pallbearer.
He prides himself on handling more-than 1,500 corpses in the last seven years, within which he moved from a lonely undertaker into working from the Lashibi Funerals Home and later formed his own company. He told the paper that his observation over the years had showed that people now take the organisation of funerals as a competition.
His promising company, the Nana Ntafrija Pall Bearing and Waiting Services, provides services such as washing, bathing and dressing the body of the dead as well as carrying the body for burial.
Business evolution and prospects
Until recently, not many people wanted to be associated with the dead let alone see it as an avenue to make money.
The few people who worked on the dead in the olden days did that for free or got tokens in return. But that is no longer the case.
Following the increasing desire of people to invest more resources into organisng funerals, many people, including Mr Emmanuel Abbey of Gillman and Abbey, have come to realise that their cultural and family heritages of caring for the dead can be turned into big time businesses; proceeds of which can rival businesses from other sectors.
Mr Abbey is currently the Managing Director of Gillman and Abbey, a funeral service company that specialises in the organisation of funerals from the start to finish.
Although Mr Abbey, like other business persons, is reluctant to talk about his earnings, he said returns from the industry were generally encouraging.
“The business is good and I will always say that I have not regretted going into it. As for the returns, we have a lot of money coming in but we also spend a lot to provide the services,” Mr Abbey said, explaining that the earnings of the industry fluctuate.
“When there are festive seasons and festivals, people normally won't hold funerals and that means less activity for us,” he explained.
The fluctuation in the earnings in the industry extends to those making coffins as well as the pall bearers.
That notwithstanding, Mr Abbey disagreed that he and others in the industry were profiting from people's losses.
“People say that when someone dies and they are wailing, we are smiling but that is not the case. Tell me, if your relative dies, what are you going to do with the body? Keep it? No. So, if there is someone who can do it while you rest, won't that be a big relief?" Mr Abbey asked.
Dancing with the dead
Mr Aidoo, a senior high school graduate, said he joined the pall bearing business while in secondary school.
His first pall bearing job, he said, was around 2005, when he was paid seven cedis for each body carried to the grave.
However, his commitment to duty earned him employment at the Lashibi Funeral Service, where he earned monthly salaries for washing, bathing, embalming, carrying and burying people.
While there, Mr Aidoo said he realised that the prospects in the job were higher than his monthly earnings and, therefore resigned to set up his Nana Ntafrija, which specialises in dancing with the dead in coffins.
Although the company is still at its infancy stage, Mr Aidoo said request made for its services had been massive and he is now struggling to contain the numbers.
"There is no week that I don’t get a job to do. When there is no business at all, I will get about five to six burial invites, but when the week is good, I can get about eight or nine," he said, adding that he earned between GH¢60 and GH¢150 for each burial.
Going forward
It is clear that a new industry has emerged and its earnings are dependent on an inevitable occurrence; the death of people.
Although the source of their existence and revenues – death – is solemn and morbid to many people, those it employs do not feel same.
It is, therefore, imperative on the part of government and the relevant stakeholders to work together with these people in fashioning regulations for the operators.
Such regulations could take into consideration the health of their workers and neighbours, hygienic conditions at their locations and clear definition of who qualifies to operate a funeral home.
These will shape the industry and give proper recognition to those it employs.
