Govt releases GH¢60m to school feeding programme to settle indebtedness to caterers
The government has released GH¢60 million to the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) to settle outstanding indebtedness for the 45 days of the second term of the 2015/2016 academic year to 5,000 caterers across the country.
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Consequently, the GSFP has disbursed GH¢34 million to cover 25 days to the caterers.
The Public Relations Officer of the GSFP, Mr Siiba Alfa, told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the programme was currently validating the data on the enrolment figures of schoolchildren fed during the second term of the 2015/2016 academic year.
He said the essence of the validation was to ensure that "no caterer is overpaid or underpaid."
Mr Alfa added that the GSFP would disburse the remaining GH¢26 million to cover the outstanding 20 days as soon as the validation process was completed.
"The second tranche will be disbursed before the reopening of schools for the new academic year in September," he said.
The GSFP was introduced in 2005 to provide one square meal a day for pupils in basic public schools. There are currently 1.7 million pupils benefiting from the programme.
Initially, the programme was anchored on support from donor partners, but it is now solely funded by the government.
As a result, the GSFP was botched by delays in getting releases from the government to pay school feeding fees to the 5,000 caterers providing services under the programme.
Since the movement of the GSFP from the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection last year, government releases to the programme has improved.
Government's commitment
Mr Alfa said the recent releases of money by the government to the GSFP, amounting to more than GH¢200 million, demonstrated the government's commitment to the programme.
"The recent releases demonstrate that the government is committed to releasing the feeding grants as quickly as possible so that the caterers are able to make their procurements early," he said.
Mr Alfa said with the regular payment of feeding fees, caterers did not have any excuse to suspend cooking for the pupils.
Besides, he said, the payments encouraged caterers to provide quality meals to the pupils in line with the objective of the GSFP.