The deputy minister-designate of health, Alexander Akwasi Acquah, has said the Mortuary and Funeral Facilities Agency (MoFFA), is a major source of employment in Ghana.
Appearing before Parliament’s appointments committee on Tuesday (12 March), Acquah said, “Mr Chairman, this is an industry, like I said, that must be looked at.”
“It is a grey area and because we do not have this agency operating optimally, you have a lot of people doing them without necessarily going through the right regulatory regimes.”
He added, “If we get MoFFA well set up, it is a major source of employment, it will curb a lot of the unhygienic ways bodies are preserved and so forth. And so, I would want to plead with my minister to give me an opportunity to give attention to this agency.”
Seeking clarity on Acquah’s submission, the chairman of the appointments committee of Parliament, Joseph Osei Owusu, asked, “Do you want the government to invest more or you want to encourage more people to invest in mortuaries and funerals?”
In response, Acquah said there are lots of private investors within the sector but it needs regulation.
He said, “People are already invested in it. There are a lot of private mortuaries coming up, but my concern is that they are not well regulated because MoFFA is understaffed, they don’t have the right Legislative Instruments to operate and so forth, and so I think that we [they] need some form of attention.”
MoFFA was established by the Health Institutions and Facilities on 31 December 2011 under ACT 829.
It is responsible for licensing, controlling and regulating facilities that are involved in the storage, transportation and disposal of human remains.
Reporting by Gemma Appiah in Accra
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