Govt spending GHC2m a day on cooked food waste of money – Oye Lithur

Nana Oye Lithur, a former minister for Gender and Social Protection, has said that the giveaway of 400,000 meals a day which amounts to GHC2 million is a clear waste of money.

She therefore urged that the Akufo-Addo led administration must as a matter of urgency replace the distribution of cooked foods with uncooked food.

“President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced during one of his statements that the government was going to provide 400,000 packs of cooked food and the NADMO coordinator said that [it] is costing GHC2million per day. I think that is a waste of money and that should be converted into dry food.”

Detailing why taxpayers' money is going down the drain, she stated that by observation, government has not put in place any mechanism that identifies the extremely poor, poor, bedridden and persons with disabilities in the society, therefore, the random sharing of cooked food defies the purpose for which the money was given out.

She further added that bedridden people, persons with disabilities and the poor in society tend to be left out when officials are sharing these lockdown relief items because they are not properly targeted.

According to her, for the above-mentioned people to equally have their share of the national cake, government must collaborate with traditional leaders, district assembly members and unit committee members who are the best to determine who is extremely poor, bedridden, widow, single mothers among others for food items to be duly distributed to those who really need them.

Speaking on Good Evening Ghana Tuesday, the politician pointed out that the health status of personnel distributing the cooked food to the public is unknown, adding, “the whole idea of cooked food is very wrong. People have different dietary [needs], some people may have certain illnesses…so giving them dry food…proteins, carbohydrates would be better and there’s even dignity with that.”

She advised that the government goes “back to the drawing board and plan how they can distribute the food in a COVID-19 compliance way where they can actually observe the social distancing,… ensure they are able to target the extremely poor, poor, persons with disabilities, bedridden and elderly persons”.

Her comments come on the backdrop of videos circulating on social media where people keep breaking the social distancing directive of President Akufo-Addo in a bid to fight for a pack of cooked food to feed themselves.