You want to digitize school feeding when you cannot even fund it - Joyce Bawa jabs Bawumia

School feeding caterers threaten to stop cooking for children

Dr Bawumia cannot be taken seriously when he makes pronouncements, Joyce Bawa

Government paying GHC1 per head for beneficiaries of school feeding programme daily

An aide to Former President John Dramani Mahama, Joyce Bawa Mogtari, has raised concerns over Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s attempt to digitize the school feeding programmes even when the policy is struggling to survive.

According to her, the vice president cannot be taken seriously when he makes pronouncements about digitizing school feeding when the government cannot even fund programme.

Speaking on Good Morning Ghana on Metro TV, Joyce Bawa said “Today I realize that when our vice president even speaks you cannot take him seriously. He made some pronouncement about digitizing school feeding program when you cannot even sustain it and fund it.”

She also raised concerns about the absence of the substantive minister who was supposed to oversee the most vulnerable in society.

“…At whose cost and to what expenses are we about digitization or digitalization school feeding. Where is the substantive minister whose job it is to oversee the most vulnerable? It is actually the reason why the school feeding was moved from the local government to the Gender Ministry. As we speak today, there is a bill on social protection but there is no substantive minister," she said.

Meanwhile, the caterers association has announced their intention to cease cooking for beneficiaries of the School Feeding Program if the government did not increase its allocation from the current 93 pesewas per child to GHC3.00.

According to the caterers who bemoaned making losses from preparing meals for the children at the current allocation, their work has become more difficult due to the country's high cost of food items and general economic hardship.

"The price of oil has increased to GHS 480. In 2017, we used to buy it for GHS 70. If we want to buy on credit, we pay GHS 600. Beans used to be GHS500, but now it is GHS 1,400. Rice has also gone up from GHS 80 to GHS 360. What do you expect us to do? You brought in the school feeding program, and with the prices of foodstuff going up, you still pay us 97 pesewas, and we are even taxed on that amount," President of the Greater Accra School Feeding Caterers Association, Juliana Cudjoe, told Citi News.

The government currently pays GHC1 per day for a plate of food for a child under the Ghana School Feeding Programme, an initiative of the comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme Pillar 3.