Caterers To Blame

Page 1 Lead
16-09-09

YESTERDAY’S first day in school for pupils at the basic level, was characterised by turmoil in the implementation of the school feeding programme across the country.
The chaos, which resulted in some schools being fed with extra food while others did not have any at all, also drew a sharp wedge between the National Co-ordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Mr Michael Nsowah, and the Chief Executive of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Mr Alfred Vanderpuije.
As the situation got messy in Accra, the AMA Chief blamed it on caterers who used to cook for the schools but whose contracts had been abrogated and warned them to desist from causing further confusion.
Mr Vanderpuije, who gave the caution, explained that the behaviour of some of the former caterers could disrupt teaching and learning with reports of some of them taking food to these schools with the escort of ‘macho men’.
He described the activities of those caterers “as illegal to say the least” and warned that “they will be arrested if they do not put a stop to this; we cannot allow unwarranted activities to disrupt school hours”.
But as the confusion assumed a national dimension, engulfing almost all districts, the National Co-ordinator of the programme, Mr Michael Nsowah, challenged the timing of the decision to recruit new caterers for the programme.
He said the timing of the decision was too short and so close to the re-opening of schools for the commencement of the 2009-2010 academic year yesterday.
“Replacing caterers at this time is not the best, since they need to be trained to enable them to provide efficient services,” he said, and indicated that without training they would not be able to deliver according to the guidelines of the programme.
Mr Nsowah said in an interview with the Daily Graphic that before a caterer was recruited, the person needed to be scrutinised very well to ensure that she met the guidelines under the programme.
He said with the current development of replacing them at such short notice, it would be difficult to scrutinise the caterers before they start cooking for the children.
He said caterers needed to know the rules and be prepared in terms of logistics before they start cooking for the children.
Explaining the rationale for the abrogation of contracts for the 44 caterers who worked for the AMA under the programme, Mr Vanderpuije stated that contracts under the school feeding programme were not permanent and that it would be reviewed annually to ensure that those who did not perform were kicked out.
Currently, there are 64 caterers working under the programme for the AMA and are expected to feed some 6,000 pupils with nutritious meal every day.
Until this academic year, the number of pupils fed under the programme for the AMA was about 3,000 but the number, he said, was increased to the current 6,000 to ensure that more children benefited from the programme, still under the pilot stage.
According to Mr Vanderpuije, concerns raised earlier to the effect that the caterers would not be ready to feed the pupils at the re-opening of this year’s academic programme was unwarranted because “food was provided for the school children today”.
Further, Mr Vanderpuije stated that the difficulties associated with the earlier implementation of the programme was as a result of a shift in the guidelines for the national programme by the initial implementers.
The programme was designed to be executed at the district level and not by a secretariat as was been done.
“It is this wrong we want to correct,” he said.
A committee on School Feeding Programme at the AMA of which Mr Vanderpuije is the chairman have met with the new caterers and consequently are aware of what is expected of them.
“If these people also fail to deliver, who says we will not annul their contracts?” he asked.
The pilot for the Ghana National School Feeding Programme was introduced in October 2005 to provide children in public primary schools and kindergartens with one hot nutritious meal, prepared from locally grown foodstuffs.
The idea is aimed at increasing enrolment, attendance and retention at the basic level.
Four years down the line, the programme is still faced with a myriad of challenges of payments for caterers working under the programme, which are often delayed, proper supervision of the quality of food and monitoring.
“Many key stakeholders including district assemblies, education officers and communities have not been involved in decision-making hence their apathy towards the implementation of the Ghana School Feeding Programme,” this was contained in a District Operational Manual for the Programme, signed by the Minister of Local government and Rural Development, Mr Joseph Yieleh Chireh.