From January 2016 every child under the school feeding program will be registered on the National Health Insurance scheme, the Gender Ministry has said.

 The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, headed by Nana Oye Lithur, believes the move would ensure that the exact number of children on the scheme can be tracked for sustainable provision of their nutritional needs.

Nana Oye Lithur announced this at a school feeding event in Accra Tuesday.

The registration of children onto the NHIS, according to Nana Oye Lithur “will serve two purposes: we will get data of the real numbers of children who are being fed because we have instances where there has been an over-bloating, in addition we will ensure that the children have access to healthcare”.

The School Feeding Programme was introduced in 2005 to provide one main meal for children to enable them stay in school and prevent them from loitering around in search for food at lunch time.

About 1.7 million children are currently on the programme, fed with less than GHC1.00 a day.

Caterers say the daily feeding grant provided to them by government is inadequate. They have also complained about delays in the release of the feeding fee by government.

However, the quality of the food served the children has also been a concern for some civil society groups.

But Nana Oye Lithur says with the programme now placed under her ministry, all the concerns would be addressed.

She said she would ensure that Caterers are paid on time.

“I am happy to announce that we will pay [ some of the arrears owed Caterers] before the end of December [2015],” Nana Oye Lithur promised.

She said Nutritionists would be consulted to draw a feeding plan for the children.

“We will be forging a closer relationship with the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service because we need to find out what is the appropriate time to feed the children,” she said.

Caterers who spoke to Joy News said although they are optimistic about the Gender Ministry’s proposed interventions, they are worried it would too long before they are implemented.