OVERHAUL THE SYSTEM NOW (SEPT 17)

THE row over the school feeding programme is embarrassing, to say the least, for it is one that could have been avoided.
The DAILY GRAPHIC’s worry is not about the politics such a laudable initiative is engulfed in, but rather the confusion that has resulted from efforts by the Government to streamline the programme.
As reported on the front page of yesterday’s edition of this paper, we think the impasse must be resolved immediately for the sake of our children.
Ghana decided to embark on the School Feeding Programme sometime in 1999 as part of the broad objectives of the Millennium Development Goals to achieve full school enrolment of pupils by 2015.
In 2005, structures were put in place to realise what was a national and collective effort to enrol more of our pupils in basic schools on a pilot basis.
Indeed, the country was highly praised in Rome by the United Nations World Food Programme for this particular initiative in 2007 as an example of how governments could help to initiate pro-poor policies.
Therefore, the signals from Tuesday’s tango between new and old caterers can only make our development partners wary of the direction of this laudable initiative meant to provide one hot and nutritious meal for every schoolchild.
At the beginning of the programme, there were reports of many people, especially in rural Ghana, enrolling their children in schools where the meals were being served. At a point in time, it was reported that communities in countries bordering our country were taking advantage of the programme to also enrol their children in Ghanaian schools.
Such is the impact of the programme that the DAILY GRAPHIC thinks we should by now have necessarily put in the needed structures to expand it to cover as many deprived communities as possible, instead of the stand-off between rival caterers and their employers.
As explained by the Director of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Mr Michael Nsowah, “replacing caterers at this time is not the best, since they need to be trained to enable them to provide efficient services”.
Indeed, there have been reports of some unscrupulous people taking advantage of the programme to enrich themselves. Those people certainly do not deserve our sympathy and they must not be allowed to prosper at the expense of the children.
The DAILY GRAPHIC calls for an open and fair system, in which people who have proven their expertise and competence in catering are hired to do the job. After all, whoever will be given the contract will be a Ghanaian first, before being part of a particular interest group.
If what the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Mr Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, said that “there are people within the system who allocated schools to themselves, thereby making windfall”, is anything to go by, then the axe must fall on such characters who do not wish our children well.
The DAILY GRAPHIC, therefore, calls on the Government to take immediate steps to put whatever structures are required in place to make the programme more functional and ensure the growth and development of our children in a sound environment.