National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Gertrude Quashigah
Ministry of Finance has released additional amount of GH₵31million to settle arrears owed to school feeding caterers in the country.
President Akufo-Addo who announced this recently in Takoradi said, he was happy funds have been released to address the challenges, particularly caterers in the Western and Western North regions.
He explains that “I am happy to announce that payments have been made to caterers in all the regions. Indeed, caterers in the Western and Western North were not paid due to insufficient funds. That has been resolved. The Ministry of Finance has released GHC 31 million for the payment of caterers”.
President Akufo-Addo’s statement comes at a time when the Ghana National School Feeding Caterers Association (GNSFCA) had appealed to the government to increase the feeding fees by 50%. Thus, from GH¢1 to GH¢1.50.
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Gertrude Quashigah has tasked the caterers across the country to start providing catering services for their respective beneficiary schools from Tuesday September 7, 2021.
The caterers were advised to clean their kitchen environment and prepare to start cooking nutritious meals for the beneficiary pupils.
“All Caterers are also encouraged to put up good performance throughout the term to ensure that the beneficiary pupils are fed with the right quality and quantity of meal within the 67 school going days. Caterers should strictly observe the COVID-19 protocols in line with Government’s directive to mitigate the spread of the pandemic” the Coordinator indicated in a statement.
“We take this opportunity to congratulate all caterers for their endurance, patience, and dedication towards their work; and we welcome all our 3,448, 065 beneficiary pupils and the caterers into the 3rd term of 2021”.
“Ghana School Feeding Programme, on the other hand, wishes to express our special appreciation to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the release of funds to settle the 1st term arrears of our Caterers,” the statement added.
“We also call on Government to critically consider and approve our request for an upward adjustment in the feeding grant per child to cushion our caterers in their work” the statement indicated.
– BY Daniel Bampoe