School feeding caterers paid Ghc135k

Available information to The Chronicle indicates that eleven caterers rendering services to nineteen schools under the Ghana National School Feeding Programme (GNSFP) in the Afram Plains South District have received GH?135,597.00 as payment covering a period of 77 days.

The caterers, The Chronicle learned, were distressed, after running out of cash to continue cooking food for pupils in their designated public schools.

Reports suggest that some of the banks which loaned money to the caterers were on their nerves to recover the loan but for over two months now, they (caterers) have been playing hide-and-seek with the bank officials, with some threatening to withdraw their services if funds were not immediately released to them.

Just last week, the Ministry of Finance released some funds running into millions of Ghana Cedis to the GNSFP Secretariat to offset the bills of over 5,000 caterers rendering services under the Programme nationwide.

In the Afram Plains South District, the caterers were allocated GH?125,031.00 for 71 days of service to the GNSFP, with a further GH?10,566.00 covering a period of six days.

The deputy National Coordinator, GNSFP, Charles Antwi Kyeremeh, in a telephone conversation with The Chronicle said additional money have been put aside as a contingency measure to pay the caterers prior to Christmas should the Ministry of Finance fail to release the tranche of funds.

Though some monies have been released to pay the caterers, there are calls for the Secretariat to make deductions for non-cooking among others, with some stakeholders accusing District Chief Executives for conniving with some caterers to rob the state.

But Mr. Antwi, commenting further, said the Secretariat of the Programme had decided not to make any deductions for non-cooking among others in the amount that has been released until the next payment in order to give the caterers some respite.

“Because we haven’t paid them for too long, some of them were almost running out of funds to carry out the job. We were almost 140 days without payment. Management has decided that we will not do the normal deductions for now because of the long delay in payment and also because of the massive indebtedness to the people.

“We will make the deductions in the next payment. This is meant to allow the caterers to have a breather to continue working”, he noted.

According to Mr. Antwi, should the Programme go ahead to make deductions from the funds released, “some of the caterers will not have the money to continue the job”.