NPP apologizes to school feeding caterers, assures payment in 3-4 weeks

The Greater Accra regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Divine Otoo Agorhom has apologized and assured caterers of the School Feeding Programme (SFP) of government’s resolve to settle its indebtedness to them.

He hinted that government was working in consultation with relevant stakeholders and partners to release the arrears owed for onward payment to their creditors.

At a conference and inauguration of the Tema West Women Wing of the NPP on Sunday, Mr. Agorhom who acknowledged the turbulent economic trajectory owing to some external factors, appealed to the caterers to continue cooking for the school children whilst government takes urgent steps to address their legitimate concerns. According to him, the issue of delay in the payment to the caterers was attributable to the time-consuming processes involved in data collation on the work of the caterers before payment but assured that the process was being expedited as managers of the programme shared in their plight. “At the last engagement with the ones who are in charge, there’s a formula, there’s a way of putting the data together to determine who’s done what and who’s deserving of how much and that processes take a lot of time but I think we’ve over delayed it and the attention now is to speed up the process and get the women paid so that they will be able to also pay their creditors”, Mr. Agorhom stated. As the role of women in society and the governance process cannot be underestimated, Mr. Agorhom lamented that the delayed payment to the women was not deliberate as government was making conscious effort to navigate its way through the myriad of economic challenges it had been saddled with. Strategising to break the 8 in next year’s general elections, Greater Accra Regional First Vice Chair of the NPP, Joana Frances Ada encouraged the women to eschew any form of internal wrangling and character assassination among themselves and rather unite with a common front to help retain the NPP in power in 2024. She said the frenzy, energy and resources devoted to health walks and fun games should henceforth be channeled into propagating the good works of the ruling NPP government in the face of global and national economic crisis to enable the people decipher any misinformation against the NPP. Ms. Ada advised the women to be in touch with the people right from now ahead of the elections and not wait until the eleventh hour as they may receive the disapproval and resentment of the people at that point. Tema West constituency women organiser, Mary Ennoo pledge her readiness and strategy to lead a campaign to rally the support of the people to vote for the NPP but hesitated to disclose their strategies for a reason to keep their opponents in the dark.