School Feeding Programme requires GH¢3bn to continue

According to the education think tank Africa Education Watch, the cost of Ghana’s school feeding program must increase by 200% to provide quality food to beneficiaries, as the demand for an increase in the cost of feeding and the payment of arrears owed caterers under the initiative continues.

The percentage increase would close the GH¢3 billion gap for quality food provided to students.

Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, said government must adopt the automatic adjustment formula of financing the policy to keep it from collapsing. “What the caterers need is not a 10 per cent adjustment in the unit cost of feeding. It wouldn’t do anything. At least a 200 per cent increase in the feeding budget is GH¢3 billion and that is required to provide decent food for children in basic schools to be consistent with what government is paying for in providing lunch at the SHS level,” he added.

Some caterers under the government’s school feeding programme have withdrawn their services after school resumed on Tuesday, April 4, 2023. The caterers threatened to lay down their tools following government’s failure to pay arrears owed them.

The caterers who are also demanding an increment in the amount government pays per child daily from GHp 97 to GH¢3 say the current amount is unsustainable because of the current state of the economy and its accompanying high cost of food commodities.

Kofi Asare also stated, “The Minister of Finance must review the framework and ensure that expenditure allocation and projection for the Ghana school feeding program is consistent with the exigencies of the time in terms of the nutritional needs of the students, inflationary trends”.

In some public basic schools within Kumasi, headteachers confirmed that they are not expecting to receive food for the pupils under the government’s school feeding program on Tuesday as the caterers have informed them that they are not cooking.