A Ugandan official has suggested to MPs that funerals should be limited to Saturday afternoons to stop people taking time off work to attend them.



Speciosa Kazibwe, a former vice-president who now heads a state development agency, noted that Uganda's death rate was very high.



Uganda has been hard hit buy HIV/Aids, which caused 91,000 deaths in 2005.



Ms Kazibwe said each constituency should have a mortuary with a fridge that could preserve corpses.



She made the comments in a meeting with MPs on economic development.



"I get surprised whenever I hear of a politician who abandons office and attends a funeral," the New Vision newspaper quoted her as saying.



Burials were taking up lots of time as well as productive vehicles, she said.



Support



One MP who heard the proposal, John Emile Otekat, told the BBC that he backed it.



Ms Kazibwe's plan would "save a lot of time wasted and it would also make families really prepare for burial, instead of just burying a person just like that."



"Most of us spend [more of] our time doing burials than any other thing, especially because of HIV/Aids and malaria which is very prevalent in Uganda."



He said this was a particular problem for politicians.



"Most of the members of parliament, even district councillors, they spend a lot of their time in burials instead of doing their work because as a politician you must be seen to be with your people during times of difficulty."



People were buried more quickly in Uganda than in neighbouring Kenya, he said.



Even so, he said the government would have to make sure there were more mortuaries before such an idea could ever be implemented.



He also noted there could be a conflict with the Muslim custom of burying people within a day of their death.