The Ashanti Regional branch of School Feeding Caterers has described gas as woefully inadequate for the increment in the cost per meal per day per child.
The caterers had asked for an increase from 97 pesewas per child to a minimum of Ghc3.50p.
However, the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Lariba Zuweira Abudu, has announced that the cost per meal per day per child has been increased to Ghc1.20p.
Hajia Abudu was addressing journalists at the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra yesterday to update the public on the payments, the way forward and other matters.
“The feeding cost per meal per day per child was increased from 80 pesewas (80Gp) in 2018 to GH¢1, and in 2023, the cost per meal per child per day has been proposed as GH¢1.20,” she said.
“The GSFP is one of the social protection flagship programmes which is consistent with other major policies and development strategies of the government as part of its shared growth development agenda and national social protection strategy which hinges on Sustainable Development Goals One, Two, Four and Five,” she said.
But reacting, Madam Gifty Asamoah, one of the leaders of the caterers, said they felt disappointed because this was not what they proposed.
”This was not something we proposed or asked for. We listened to the press conference and what the Minister had to say. We are dissatisfied. She should have come here to get firsthand information. If we asked for Ghc3.50p and you couldn’t give it to us, why not give us Ghc2? ”What makes you think you should give us Gh1.20p?”
”I am of the opinion that they do not want us to work under the School Feeding Programme again,” she told Kwabena Agyapong on Rainbow Radio 87.5Fm’s Frontline. What are they expecting us to do with Ghc1.20p?”
Concerning arrears, she stated that they date from 2018 to the present and that the data provided by the Minister does not accurately represent the facts.
She went on to say that some caterers who worked during the Covid-19 era, including herself, had not been paid in full and that she was owed Ghc10,000.
By: Rashid Obodai Provencal/Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
