The Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection has announced plans to open bids for caterers to apply for contracts to provide meals for schools under the School Feeding Programme.

According to the Gender Minister, Darkoa Newman, prospective caterers are expected to create an online profile at a fee of GH₵200.

 She explained that this new recruitment is for the 2024/2025 academic year, beginning this September.

"All prospective caterers, you are welcome to apply. There are requirements that need to be fulfilled because the Ghana School Feeding Programme must ensure that you can pre-finance. As you all know, payments are made after the term, so you need to prove that you can pre-finance."

“You should have about GH₵5000 in an account as showing proof that you can pre-finance and should be fine,” she said during a Minister’s press briefing on August 8.

The prospective caterers are also expected to have a business operating permit, a health certificate, and other documents, which will be outlined in a forthcoming publication.

Ahead of this publication in the dailies, Madam Newman said the Ministry will run a pilot system in the New Juaben South constituency of the Eastern Region and Krachi East in the Oti region.

These constituencies, she said, were selected based on their internet connectivity and the challenges posed by poor internet connectivity levels.

“So this pilot process that they are going to go through will be the final one. When we roll out the national one, they will not have to go through the system because they have already been employed through the system,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Gender Minister said that caterers who provided meals for the schools in the previous term have been paid for the first term, and the Ministry is working to settle the debt for the second term.