Mourners who went to the Accra International Conference Centre, (AICC), to pay their last respects to the former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, were disappointed over the closed casket.
The casket containing the body of the international icon was closed and covered with the Ghana flag on Tuesday as mourners filed past to pay their respects.
According to some of them, the closed casket was not in line with the Ghanaian way of mourning the dead.
However, a Deputy Information Minister, Pius Enam Hadzide, downplayed the concerns.
“There are several high profile funerals in which I have seen the casket covered, even in this country, so it is not a major problem,” he said.
He said the focus should be on the occasion, which is trying to mirror Kofi Annan’s apparent modesty.
“The man Kofi Annan himself is a modest person and he doesn’t want a lot of flamboyance around the funeral… even as we give him a befitting state funeral, we think that it is still important that we respect his wishes of keeping it a little modest, a little soft and so on and so forth.”
On Wednesday, September 12, dignitaries are expected to file past and pay their last respects to Kofi Annan.
A burial service will then take place on Thursday September 13 at the Conference Centre before he is finally laid to rest at the Executive Wing of new Military Cemetery at Burma Camp.