Education think
tank, Africa Education Watch, has said a 200 percent increase in the cost of
the school feeding programme is required for the provision of quality food to
beneficiaries.
This according
to the think tank is the response to the ongoing demand for an increase in the
cost of feeding and the payment of arrears owed caterers under the initiative.
The percentage
increase will close the GH¢3 billion gap with the intervention to improve the
quality of food provided to students.
Kofi Asare,
Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, told Citi News that the
government must adopt the automatic adjustment formula of financing the policy
to keep it from collapsing.
“What the
caterers need is not a 10 percent adjustment in the unit cost of feeding. It wouldn’t
do anything. At least a 200 percent increase in the feeding budget is GH¢3
billion and that is required to provide decent food for children in basic
schools to be consistent with what government is paying for in providing lunch
at the SHS level.”
Some caterers
under the government’s school feeding programme have withdrawn their services
after school resumed on Tuesday, April 4.
The decision to
withdraw their services comes after the caterers threatened to lay down their
tools following the government’s failure to pay arrears owed them.
The caterers who
are also demanding an increment in the amount government pays per child daily
from GHp 97 to GH¢3 say the current amount is unsustainable because of the
current state of the economy and its accompanying high cost of food
commodities.
In some public
basic schools, Citi News visited within Kumasi, headteachers
confirmed that they are not expecting to receive food for the pupils under the
government’s school feeding program on Tuesday as the caterers have informed
them that they are not cooking.
“The Minster of
Finance must review the framework and ensure that expenditure allocation and
projection for the Ghana school feeding program is consistent with the
exigencies of the time in terms of the nutritional needs of the students,
inflationary trends”, Kofi Asare added.
Source: citinewsroom.com
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