MP Calls On Government To Save School Feeding Programme
Hon. Nicholas Amankwah, the MP for Wassa Amenfi East of the Western Region is unhappy with the worrying manner in which social interventions that were introduced by the former President John Agyekum Kuffour are gradually collapsing under NPP administration of President Nana Akufo Addo.
Hon. Nicholas Amankwah who is also a member of Parliamentary Select Committee on Gender and Employment has suggested that the School Feeding Programme is in a state of emergency currently and near collapse.
The Amenfi East MP said the Programme was struggling and could collapse if Akufo Addo and the finance ministry fails to address the challenges confronting it.
The MP has noted the positive results of the school feeding programme at the pre-tertiary education level over the years, which the country is proud of; nevertheless, if the government does not take urgent responsibility for rectifying the current situation, the students will continue to suffer.
Hon. Nicholas Amankwah who is affectionately called Home Boy was making his submission on Accra based Radio station on Thursday, 9, 2022, on the highlights of the 2023 Budget.
He lamented the failure on the part of the government to pay gh400m arrears owned school feeding caterers contracted to work under the programme.
Home Boy calls on the government, through the Ministry of Finance to rectify the current fund flow gaps for the benefit of the children in deprived communities who look up to these meals for their survival in the classroom.
According to him, the Ghana School Feeding Programme is delivering on its promise to reduce hunger and malnutrition, increase school enrolment and retention, and promote domestic food production.
However, despite these successes, the lawmaker asserted that late payments and insufficient funding per child are jeopardizing the entire programme.
The current irregular flow of funds inhibits caterers’ ability to purchase foodstuff directly from smallholder farmers, limiting the well-intended goal to boost local food production and provision of quality meals for our children to improve their nutritional and healthy status.
The Amenfi East MP is also pushing for an increase in the per-student cost with respect to the rising cost of living in the country.
He further stated that the worsening inflation rate in the country has made this call even more urgent while urging the government to focus more on the sustainability and quality of the policy over increasing pupil enrollment.
He suggested an increase of the current allocation from gh¢1.20p to a befitting amount that could match the current market food inflation.
Commenting on NPP’s industrial performance over the past 6years in power, the MP quizzes that, the NPP’s 1D1F promise was a mere sloganeering because the government started their administration with a big agenda of one district one factory but have failed the people.
According to the MP, the NPP government was only to rebrand existing factories as new factories to deceive Ghanaians.
Nicholas Amankwah emphasized that “under the NDC, a plywood company they gave in Amenfi East is currently functioning and have employed over 300 youths for direct and indirect jobs, but President Mahama didn’t put billboards there that it is 1 District, 1 Factory” he stressed.
The MP also asked the finance minister to do the needful by resigning to allow fresh mind to hold his position since his incompetency and mismanagement of the economy had led the Ghanaian economic into ditch.
Source: Kaakyire Kwasi Afari/Filasconews.com
