Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Kofi Asare, has expressed disappointment in the leadership of the school feeding programme in the country, insisting it has left much to be desired.
Mr Asare revealed that the absence of the minister of Gender and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo, at the Ministry, has affected the school feeding programme delivery due to the fact that it is the biggest programme of the Ministry. Coupled with this, he explained that the issue with the non-payment of funds to caterers further lends credence to the poor leadership at the ministry since the leader at the helm of affairs would have advocated for the release of funds to pay the caterers.
“Of course, you cannot compare the school feeding programme to the free senior high school feeding because one is a flagship of the government of the day, the other isn’t… The leadership of the school feeding programme has left much to be desired. We’ve gone about a year without a substantive minister managing the programme. And let me just remind you that the school feeding programme accounts for close to 80% of the budget of the Ministry of Gender if not more than that. The budget of the Ministry of Gender is a little above GHC1 billion and school feeding programme this year, the allocation was about 800 million Ghana cedis. So, it tells you that the school feeding programme is virtually the main deal at the Ministry of Gender.”
Kofi Asare
Budgetary allocation for ministry
Commenting on the budgetary allocation to the ministry, Mr Asare indicated that the absence of a substantive minister to fill in the gap left by Sarah Adwoa Safo to advocate against the cutting of the Ministry’s budget due to economic challenges in the country has also compounded the issues of the programme. He elaborated that after the Minister of Finance, during the budget reading, announced an increase in the school feeding allocation from “488 million last year to about 860 million this year which represented about 90% increment”, he went ahead to announce that government was increasing the number of students benefitting from 3.4 to 4 million.
“What happened 3 months after the budget was read was that the caretaker minister goes to parliament, just on the eve of the Minister of Finance indicating that because of the austerity measures, budgets would have to be cut by 20%, then the caretaker minister goes to parliament and says that the expansion of the school feeding programme, the purpose for which the allocation was increased for this year have been put on hold.”
Kofi Asare
The Executive Director of Eduwatch emphasized that due to the move by the Finance Minister, it suggests that “perhaps that budget has been cut because the 20% cuts were announced”. With this, he iterated that there hasn’t been any decisive leadership to assure caterers that the allocation that were made by the Minister of Finance in his budget have “been disbursed, for that matter, the arrears are being paid, or the agitations for increment which started about 3 years or 2 years ago, you know, has been approved”.
“So you see that if there was a substantive minister, who in this case was a cabinet minister, I’m not sure if that minister wouldn’t have advocated at that level for her budget not to be cut. And I’m talking about a social inclusion budget; a budget meant for the poor in our society. That is why I see that the school feeding issue first [is] a leadership issue from the Ministry of Gender. It could have been managed properly, but it’s first a leadership issue.”
Kofi Asare
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