Former Minister for Gender and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, is not happy about the food distribution strategy adopted by the government during the lockdown.
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In her view, spending a whopping sum of GH₵2 million to feed needy people in lockdown areas a day “is a waste of money.”
Government, as part of its mitigating measures during the lockdown in Accra and Greater Kumasi, provides 400,000 packs of cooked food.
This mitigating measure, according to the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), costs the State GH₵2 million a day.
Baffled with the amount, the former Gender Minister said serving cooked food is a misplaced priority.
“NADMO has said that the giveaway of 400,000 meals a day amounts to GHC2 million which is a clear waste of money,” she stated on Good Evening Ghana.
Rather, what government should do, she suggested, is to share uncooked food to those who genuinely need it.
She explained that, due to the different dietary needs of people, it will be wrong to serve everyone to same cooked food.
“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,” the former Gender Minister advised.
She urged the government to go back to the drawing board and re-strategise for effective distribution of relief items to the needy across the country.
“Government must go 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,” she added.