Not everything on social media is true - Gender Minister on hot meals controversy

The Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection, Cynthia Mamle Morrison has cautioned Ghanaians to be wary of what they accept as facts on social media, particularly with regards to government’s policies.

Her comments come as a reaction to recent string of reports and videos which captured some students included in the free hot meal delivery complaining about the quality of food they were served.

The Minister said while his ministry is working effortlessly to address the bottlenecks in the delivery of the free hot meals to final year JHS students across the country, Ghanaians must not be quick to accept all they see on social media as the reality.

Some students in some videos bitterly complained about the quality of food but the Minister insisted that how food looks may not be exactly the same as how it tastes.

But the Minister said; “…On social media, If I mix rice and beans, when you see it on social media you’ll think it is not delicious or nutritious but when you taste the food…it is the headmaster that tastes the food and gives us the remark so it is not everything that you see on social media that is very true…”

While acknowledging the few genuine cases where the quality of food was indeed substandard, she indicated that some contracts have been taken from caterers who performed abysmally in their delivery.

“Indeed, we all know, I cannot stand here and say everything is 100 percent…but because we have the monitoring system, we can monitor them (caterers) and if we know that your food is not up to standard we change your contract…”

Cynthia Mamle Morrison announced her resolve to address all the challenges at hand and those they are anticipating.

“I believe we have a few challenges which we are working at,” she concluded.

The Minister was speaking at a meet-the-press session, Wednesday, September 2, 2020 in Accra.