The Director of Public Relations of GES, Cassandra Twum Ampofo has refuted claims by the Minority spokesperson on Education in Parliament, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, that the Ghana Education Service has been supplying maggot-infested rice to Senior High Schools.
She said no Senior High School (SHS) had received any rice containing maggots.
“I specifically tasked all the regional directors to liaise with their heads and to report. Let me tell you that none of the regional directors gave us the information that any of their schools within their regions received a bag, even a single bag of maggot-infested rice. Also, we do not know where that report is coming from,” she said.
Madam Ampofo stressed that, her outfit carried out investigations following the accusations, however, the findings showed that the claims were untrue.
“Per our investigations which I personally chaired, we did not find any, so that is false,” she said.
Peter Nortsu-Kotoe had accused the GES of feeding maggot-infested rice to Senior High Schools in the country, explaining that the rice was stored in a warehouse for a long period, and that when it was nearing expiration, the GES distributed it to schools.
Making the claim on the floor of parliament on Monday, he said “Mr Speaker, as we speak now there is the same rice in the system which has been supplied in the system from India. This rice, Mr Speaker is maggot infested. When it was imported in 2021, the suppliers or the importers did not pay for the duty on the rice so they had to be stored in a warehouse. Now they have Nicodemusly gone to remove the rice and distributed it to Senior High Schools.”
Mr Nortsu-Kotoe who is also the representative of the people of the Akatsi North constituency, added that at the moment about 5,000 metric tonnes of rice have been distributed to second cycle institutions.
Again, the Legislator said this phenomenon was a recurring one, as two years ago, expired canned fish was supplied to schools.
“You will realize that the type of food they are fed with at school is questionable very very terrible. Two years ago, I raised an issue of a canned fish that was provided in the senior high schools when it was about to expire then rebranded the container and made it look as if it was newly imported,” he said.