Member of Parliament for Assin Central Kennedy Ohene Agyapong has advised the Ministry of Gender to scrap the School Feeding Programme if it cannot increase the 97 pesewas feeding amount per child.
According to him, whereas the food amount is inadequate, caterers are forced to pay bribes to the School Feeding Programme Coordinators before their money is paid after they have fed the pupils.
Speaking in an interview, the NPP MP argued that 97 pesewas 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.
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In many parts of the world, school meals and school feeding have been used as effective mechanisms for addressing child nutrition, educational enrolment, and retention and hygiene issues.
But, Kennedy Agyapong argues that at 97 pesewas, the objective of the programme 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 programme 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.