Ghana School Feeding Programme Collapsing Under Prez Akufo-Addo --Dr Clement Abass Apaak Fires Back
According to Dr. Apaak who doubles as the Deputy Ranking member of the Ghanaian Parliament's Education Committee the current challenges facing the Ghana School Feeding Programme, being charaterised by the situation when the school feeding caterers to lay down their tools over unpaid arrears was adversely affecting the errollment of the beneficiary public schools in the country.
Freeman Koryekpor 
The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Builsa South Constituency in the Upper East Region on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr.Clement Abass Apaak, has lashed out at the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for trying to collapse the successful Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) which the previous NDC government has handed over to the NPP government.
According to Dr. Apaak who doubles as the Deputy Ranking member of the Ghanaian Parliament's Education Committee the current challenges facing the Ghana School Feeding Programme, being charaterised by the situation when the school feeding caterers to lay down their tools over unpaid arrears was adversely affecting the errollment of the beneficiary public schools in the country.
Dr.Apaak pointed out that the current challenges facing the effective implementation of the school feeding programme can be easily solved if the NDC government should have been in power now.
He maintained that the effective implementation of the programme was one of the social issues that the NDC government wanted to adopt in our ways to addressing the implementation challenges in the education sector of the country.
He stated that some of these problems are unique to the government policies to the free senior high schools and its implementation that suggests that if we will have been in political power to implement them in our normal way, he believes that some these serious educational problems would not have existed in the country.
"We will have solved these problems if we should have been in political power now, because l believe that some of these problems are unique to government programme," he noted.
Speaking on Angel Television on Monday May 29, 2023 monitored by Soireenews.com Dr. Apaak accused the NPP government under President Akufo-Addo for collapsing the many educational policies in this country.
Dr Apaak comments come after the Caterers under the School Feeding Programme have stopped to cook for the children in the beneficiary public schools across the country.
It would be recalled caterers under the School Feeding Programme have vowed not to cook for the school children until monies owed them are paid.
The caterers insisted they will not be moved by empty promises this time.
The spokesman for the caterers, Kwaku Amedume, in a media interview said they have been taken for granted for far too long.
According to him, they have gone through all the necessary paperwork but they have still not been paid.
“That has always been the story we have been hearing for the past two years; we are organising some money, we are going to release some funding, we should bring our names, we should meet at 10 o’clock.
“We have gone through all these processes and promises, and we are still where we are for the past two years. So I don’t think it is enough to just conclude that we are satisfied. Until we have our money in our hands, we don’t trust that this money will be paid to us.”
The caterers declared a national strike on April 27, over government’s failure to pay them their arrears and increase the amount paid per child from 97 pesewas to GH¢3.50.
According to the National Organiser of the School Feeding Association, Mr Kwame Amankwaah, the caterers will only return to the kitchen after the government agrees to increase the amount per child.
But Dr. Apaak described the NPP government under President Akufo-Addo as bad managers of Ghana's economy which has brought economic crisis to people in the country.
He indicated that the NDC has opposed the concepts and principles of the distributions of laptops to the teachers of the public schools under the One-Teacher, One Laptop Policy of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government under President Addo Dankwaa Akufo-Addo.
According to Dr. Apaak, if the NPP government President Akufo-Addo can get the money resources to effectively implement the policy then it is fair and good.
"But l want to raise other challenges to demonstrate that if the NPP government distributes the laptop to the teachers of the public schools today, that does not mean that the challenges facing the teachers in the education sector are going to be changed. Because the challenges facing them were not about getting the laptops," Dr Appaak stated.
He rhetorically asked that "if the pupils that the teachers are going to use the laptop to teach were denied food due to the current challenges facing the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), being charaterised by the situation when the school feeding caterers to lay down their tools over unpaid arrears, how could the pupils have peaceful mind to absorb what their teachers are teaching them using the labtops."
He maintained that if the children have not eaten well how they would have mind to learn, so what l am saying is that under the current conditions we have to priotise.
"And that the argument l am making is that while it is good policy to me, it is not an immediate needs and that they should not be priotised over all the other issues,"Dr. Apaak explained.
He further argued that if the NPP government should put in place good measures to solve these problems at ones,"for me l do not have any problem."
