General News of Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Source: My News GH
2021-04-21
Sarah Adwoa Sarfo, Minister for Gender,Children & Social Protection
Member of Parliament for Assin Central Kennedy Ohene Agyapong has advised the Ministry of Gender to scrap the School Feeding Program if it cannot increase the 97 pesewas feeding amount per child.
Mr. Agyapong added that whereas the food amount is inadequate, caterers are forced to pay bribes to the School Feeding Program Coordinators before their money is paid after they have fed the pupils.
Speaking in an interview restreamed by MyNewsGh.com, the say it plain NPP MP argued that 97pesewas per child is inadequate for the school feeding caterers to cook “any good” for the children with many of the caterers suffering losses as a result.
In several parts of the world, school meals and school feeding have been used as an effective mechanism for addressing child nutrition, educational enrolment and retention and hygiene issues.
But Kennedy Agyapong argues that at 97pesewas, the objective of the program is not being met, and called on Adwoa Safo and the CEO of the National Buffer Stock company to take steps to address the problem by instituting “realistic prices” for foodstuff.
The School Feeding program has also effectively provided income-generation, employment creation and economic integration benefits to communities in which they have been implemented. Other countries have experienced gender-related gains, reliable markets for farmers as well as innovations in agro-processing.
The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) has been touted to have the potential to contribute to the national social protection agenda in these ways.