Our Viewpoint | Granny’s body taken to a bank

The grotesque spectacle that unfolded at a Capitec Bank branch in KwaDukuza last week is more than a shocking news story: it is a stark indictment of a society in which the pursuit of money is increasingly eclipsing the values of dignity, restraint and respect — even for the dead. Published on the front page ofThe Witness’sFriday edition, the story highlights the extent to which human beings were prepared to go to secure their funeral interests. While a grieving family felt compelled to carry the body of their grandmother into a bank to force the release of funeral policy funds is disturbing enough, what compounds the moral failure is the fact that even a funeral service provider agreed to facilitate such an act.

Between the bureaucracy of finance and the transactional logic of the funeral industry, the deceased woman’s body was no longer treated as the remains of a human life but instead became an instrument — proof, leverage and collateral. While what happened at the KwaDukuza Capitec Bank branch remains an indictment of the family members and the funeral parlour involved, it also raises questions about the attitude of financial institutions more broadly. What transpired at Capitec Bank is a classic example of what happens when institutions forget their human purpose.

Funeral policies exist precisely to spare families the humiliation of scrambling for money in moments of grief. The incident shows what happens when procedures become so rigid that bereaved families feel cornered into acts of desperation. If there is a lesson here, it is that both corporations and communities must recalibrate their moral compass.

[paywall]

Financial institutions must process funeral claims with urgency and empathy, recognising the human cost of delay. Service providers must remember that their first duty is to the dignity of the deceased, not the expediency of payment. A nation that allows money to dictate how it treats its dead risks losing sight of how it values the living. That is a far greater tragedy than any delayed payout.

[/paywall]