As part of the re-targeting exercise currently being rolled out by the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) Secretariat nationwide, an estimated 6,123 basic school pupils in the East Gonja District of the Northern Region are to be provided with one hot meal each day.
This showed a further increase of about 3333 from the previous figure of 2880 under the old programme in the entire East Gonja District.
The District Chief Executive for East Gonja, Alhassan Mumuni disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting in Salaga that brought together Assembly Members, Chair persons of Parent Teacher Associations and School Management Committees, caterers, head-teachers and representatives of beneficiary schools under the old programme to re-strategise on how to successfully implement the programme in the area.
He said that the GSFP for the 2010/2011 academic year ran into serious financial problems following the withdrawal of donors support. This, he attributed to the fact that some of the terms and conditions of the programme were breached during the initial implementation stages, thereby forcing the donors to withdraw their support.
Mr. Mumuni explained that after the Dutch Government withdrew its support, the Government of Ghana decided to finance it continuously for the past two years running.
He indicated that due to the huge sums of money that was expended in the programme, government decided to repackage and expand it in line with its pro-poor policies in order to reach out to more poor and needy schools in the rural areas where enrolment rates are lower.
According to the DCE, the repackaging of the GSFP has generated a lot of interest and willingness on the part of the donors pledging their support once again.
The re-targeting programme, he explained was to rope in more poverty stricken communities in the country, adding “ in line with this plan, all schools with enrolment figures above 500 pupils and located in urban centres are not eligible under the retargeted programme”.
The meeting he noted was also intended to afford authorities of beneficiary schools under the old programme to interact with the GSFP District Implementation Committee and officials of the GSFP so as to inform them about the changes.
Meanwhile, during an open forum, some Assembly Members and teachers whose schools are likely to be out of the programme given their locations and enrolment figures complained bitterly that their people might not understand why their schools would be left out of the GSFP.
The DCE for East Gonja thus, appealed to the participants to help sensitize community members to understand the new changes that the programme was currently undergoing. He also stated that only performing caterers shall be allowed to provide services as the Assembly will not compromise any poor quality food.
No comments:
Post a Comment