School Feeding Program under threat

Information gathered by Today point to an imminent halt of services rendered by some caterers under the Ghana School Feeding Programme for the non-payment of monies owed them.

Scores of caterers this reporter spoke to lamented the practice where government pays them only GH¢80 after every three months arguing that this was not the best.

A visit to some of institutions where government was offering the school feeding programme in the Greater Accra region revealed a cluster of dejected caterers who threatened to vent their spleen on government for the practice.

Some of them lamented that they relied on the money paid them to support their various families adding that most of them have not been able to pay for the fees of their wards because of the delay in their pay.

“What do they expect us to feed on for a whole three months before they give us our money,” an aggrieved caterer enquired. They also told this reporter that all attempts to engage government to change its modus operandi have fallen on deaf ears.

If these aggrieved workers carry out their threat, most school children who might have been relying on them for their daily meals would end up disappointed and virtually hungry throughout their stay in school.

The programme, Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) is now feeding 1,567,839 pupils in some 4,500 selected primary schools and kindergartens across the country with a quantum jump from 1,367 schools and 600,000 beneficiaries as at January 2009.