The legitimacy of Who to Cook for School Feeding Continues in Akuapem North

The enormous state of confusion over the legitimacy of which caterers to operate the school feeding programme in the Akuapem North Municipality continues after the reopening of basic primary school second term.

Two groups of caterers have again resumed cooking separately for the same schools in Akuapem North Municipality of the Eastern Region.

The misunderstanding over who has the legitimacy to cook for the schools in the Municipality arose when the Member of Parliament for Akuapem North Constituency, Nana Ama Dokua Asiamah, and the Municipal Chief Executive, Barima Awuah Asiedu-Larbi Sarpong, respectively, sidelined the old caterers and appointed new ones to operate without official termination of the old caterers' contracts.

A closed source from the party's members indicates, that the decision was necessitated on the basis that the affected caterers numbering about 20, all members of the ruling New Patriotic Party women's wing, did not second the Member of Parliament, during the initial process leading to the Party’s primaries before she eventually went unopposed.

Before the reopening of the 2021 academic year, the old caterers initially suspended their services to petition the School Feeding Secretariat about the legitimacy of their job, but the secretariat noted that it has not contracted any new caterers, because GSFP was owing huge amounts of money to the old caterers, which gave them the authority to immediately resume their cooking services to the schools.

The Ghana School feeding Program, on January 23, 2021, issued a statement to caution Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, as well as Party Executives, and GSFP Regional Coordinators to restrain from reallocating beneficiary schools to new caterers, adding that they were doing so at the jeopardy of their own financial loss since Ghana School Feeding Programme has legitimately offered the job to the old caterers and do not recognizes any new caterers.

 
 Read the Statement below 

A petition written and signed by the affected caterers led by Madam Bernice Opare to the National Director of School Feeding Secretariat stated that, “we the listed caterers in Akuapem North Municipal wish to write and bring our petition to your notice. We were given the contract to feed pupils in various schools in our Municipality.

We mobilized ourselves and stocked up foodstuffs and ingredients to render our service on hearing President’s speech about the reopening of Schools as part of our support to the secretariat “.

“As it stands now, we have not received any notice of non-performance or ineffectiveness let alone no termination letters.

Our foodstuffs and ingredients stocked up in various storerooms are getting rotten and we are losing money on daily basis. We are appealing to your humble office to intervene so we can return and render our service to our allotted schools and also save money”

William Ofori Akwaboa, Eastern Regional Correspondent