“De-politicise School Feeding” –Minister

Mr Emmanuel Kojo Agyekum, Deputy Minister, Local Government and Rural Development, on Monday called for the depoliticisation of the activities of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).

He said depoliticisation of the Programme would not only ensure that school children who really needed the Programme benefited,  but also that contracts were only awarded to person who could perform and not to people based on their political affiliation.

Mr Agyekum said this during a courtesy call on him by a six-member delegation from Osun State in Nigeria and the Partnership for Child Development (PCD), a charitable organisation, who were in Ghana to learn more on the implementation of the school feeding programme.

He said the Programme faced a lot of sponsorship challenges in 2007 due to issues of polticisation and wrong targeting, which made some elite schools to benefit contrary to the aims of the Programme.

Briefing the delegation Ms Irene Odokai Messiba, Focal Person, GSFP, said the Programme which was started in 2005 was to help boost school enrollment among children in deprived communities by giving them one hot and nutritious meal a day.

She said the cost per child was 50 pesewas, adding that so far over 1.7 million pupils were benefiting across the country.

She mentioned Partnership for Child Development (PCD), the World Food Programme (WFP) and Netherlands Development Corporation (SNV) as some of the partners of the Programme.

Mr Folorunso Bamisayemi, Chairman, Committee on Education, Osun State Parliament, who was the leader of the delegation expressed the readiness of the delegation to learn more about the Programme in order to properly implement it in their state.

               GNA