We have to cut down on cost of funerals

There are many interesting posts on social media that examine the cost of funerals in Kenya. Several make specific reference to the modest send-off for Bob Collymore, the CEO of Safaricom, East Africa’s most profitable company, which was devoid of extravagance and overindulgence.

The kind of excesses, in terms of time and money, spent on funerals in Kenya adversely affect the well-being of the bereaved. While culture is important, the so-called “befitting send-offs” are characterised by wastefulness and are simply unsustainable.

The pattern is familiar: Once a family loses a loved one, the body is preserved at the nearest mortuary as fundraising activities begin in earnest to foot extravagant budgets. The preferred mode of fundraising is WhatsApp groups as it is easy to unilaterally enlist everyone the administrators know.

Those who die away from their ancestral homes have to be “brought home”. But should we really fundraise to transport bodies over hundreds of kilometres? Would we not save time and money to inter bodies wherever death occurs? And the transportation is not always devoid of drama and spectacle.

I was once in a funeral entourage from Nairobi to western Kenya but the hearse kept breaking down. The villagers concluded that the dead had “refused to be taken home”. They removed the body from the coffin and caned it brutally as the mechanics repaired the hearse. They put it back in the hearse and the journey resumed. The hearse didn’t break down again!

But there are many people who capitalise on funerals to build or destroy political careers. Besides contributing money for the funeral, politicians often use the event to outdo one another. I know of a man who became an MP mainly because his mini bus transported bodies from Nairobi to his rural constituency. And I recently heard Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko admit on television that his old matatus are mostly used to take bodies for burial in their ancestral homes.

The culture of feasting and merrymaking at funerals is surprising. The money collected is normally used to feed mourners and pay professional mourners. And entrepreneurs have sprung up in rural Kenya who provide catering services and hiring out of tents, chairs and public address systems.

Being a people who love the dead more than the living, we have to think of sustainable models of doing it. It is necessary to increase the uptake of funeral insurance policies, which, so far, only three per cent of Kenyans have, to cover for cost of coffin, transport and food. We would dramatically reduce the fundraising that is almost choking Kenyans.

A research commissioned by the Association of Kenya Insurers decries the low uptake of funeral covers. It argues that this policy would ensure that families are not left worse off financially after the death of a loved one. It calls upon change in our perception of death so that we can prepare for it.

More significantly, it is important to rethink our methods of disposal of bodies. In rural Kenya, some homesteads look like cemeteries, with graves dotting them, which devalues the land. While cremation is increasingly becoming popular, there are other, better methods.

The latest technology of disposing of human bodies converts human remains into soil for use in gardens. I think that is better for the earth than any other form of disposal.

Prof Kabaji is a researcher and professor of literary communication at Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST).