Spokesperson of the National Food Suppliers Association, Kwaku Amedume, has revealed that members will resume picketing on Friday, June 23, 2023, if government fails to pay outstanding arrears owed members.

According to him, government must honour its promises to members per a consensus reached with government in a meeting. He indicated that although its commitment to government in delivering supplies to senior high schools in the country has been smooth, with payments being prompt, it has stalled recently.

Mr Amedume stated that the Buffer Stock Company has been indebted to suppliers for the last two years and that despite several attempts made by suppliers to the Company for payments to be made, it has failed to honor its commitment by way of payment.

“So, we want to give government the benefit of the doubt. We understand that withdrawing money from government’s coffers takes some processes… So, we want to give government that benefit of the doubt and we want to allow the processes to go and see if by this Friday our monies will be paid to us, but failure to pay as the government promised, we will definitely be going back to picketing.”
Kwaku Amedume

Mr Amedume noted that the association has done its best to make grievance of members attended to by government, but the latter has not heeded to its call yet. He explained that owing to this, members resorted to picket on the 24^th of May, but were invited to have a meeting with government.

“… We agreed we would give them some time again – we gave them two weeks again because we’ve been told that initiations have been made to ensure that payments are effected. We’ve been told that Controller and Accountant General has been instructed to effect payments to our members.”
Kwaku Amedume

Members frustrated over lack of payment of arrears

Moreover, Mr Amedume recounted that during engagement, government provided some evidence to the effect that the monies will be paid in due course. He stated that currently, government’s outstanding arrears to members of the association is rounding up to GHC270 million.

With this, the spokesperson for the association lamented its impact on members. Mr Amedume expressed that it has been really “frustrating and our members are really frustrated”.

“Some of our members are dead as a result of the frustrations they go through. Most of them go in for bank loans, some rely on some credibility to secure funding source to finance their businesses. That credibility is dwindling, banks are on us and our properties and assets we used to secure those loans for our businesses are on the verge of being taken over by banks and that is why we are appealing to government for government to do something about it, failure of which we would have our members losing a lot from their businesses.”
Kwaku Amedume

Despite government’s outstanding arrears, Mr Amedume revealed that members are still supplying foodstuff to schools. He stated that although there are arrears yet to be paid, which doesn’t include the GHC270 million, it is committed to supplying to schools until government’s resort to being adamant in payment.

“… We are more particular about this GHC270 million because it has been long overdue. This money has been in arrears since 2001/2002 academic year. If you calculate the inflation, interest rate up to date, you realize that if those monies are given to us, the value of those monies have reduced drastically and that’s why we are pleading with government that we want to continue with the supply, we want to support the government’s policy of free SHS but we cannot do so if our monies are locked up with the government.”
Kwaku Amedume