National secretariat of school feeding programme urged to be fair to

schools

Bolgatanga, Oct 4, (Akapule) GNA- The Northern Patriots in Research and Advocacy (NORPRA) has appealed to the National Secretariat of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) to be fair to the three Northern Regions and other poor communities in Ghana in its selection of schools for the programme.

This was contained in a statement signed and issued by the President of NORPRA, Mr Bismarck Adongo Ayorogo at Bolgatanga. It stated that the School Feeding Programme, initiated by the United Nations and NEPAD is aimed at helping Ghana attain the Millennium Development Goals, especially eradicating poverty and hunger, universal primary education and gender equality, and noted that it was therefore sad to see that the National Secretariat was using the programme to frustrate, marginalize and discriminate against the poorest segment of the society particularly the three Northern Regions. The statement explained that it was on record that some areas in the country known to have incidence of poverty of 10 per cent have about one hundred of their schools being selected for the programme, whilst the entire three Northern Regions with an average poverty level of 70 per cent had only 80 schools selected.

It noted that the National Secretariat of the programme had since 2005 adopted and applied the "equal distribution formula". It started with one school per region and later extended it to one school per district in 2006.

The statement pointed out that as at December 2007, a total number of schools benefiting from the programme stood at 975. It said continuous application of the adopted formula, which to a greater extent had no respect for poverty levels, would have been allocating seven schools to each of the 138 districts in the country and that would have undoubtedly covered 168 schools in the three Northern Regions.

The statement therefore called on the National Secretariat of the GSFP to demonstrate fairness and transparency by applying to all, the particular formula that gave a single metropolis one hundred schools.