Deputy Country Director of SEND Ghana, Dr. Emmanuel Ayifah, has accused the government of being unserious, uncommitted to disbursing budget allocated amount to the school feeding secretariat.

According to him, the government's lackadaisical attitude towards this important social protection and inclusion programme largely results from the government’s refusal to prioritise basic education in the country.

“The government seems not to care so much about basic education; we’re always just looking at secondary education. Yes, you’ve been giving the three cedis to secondary education, why are you not prioritizing the basic because the foundation is important looking at the attendant positive effect of school feeding? So for me it’s a sheer non-seriousness of government, non-commitment of government to actually disburse allocated amount to the school feeding secretariat,” he said on JoyNews’ PM Express.

His comment follows the ongoing strike action by caterers under the school feeding programme who are arguing that the amounts given them to deliver their services are not enough.

Currently, caterers are given 97 pesewas per head, this is against the three cedis per head given to secondary school caterers.

The caterers insist that given the current high inflation rates and rising cost of foodstuff the 97 pesewas per head be increased to three cedis.

Reacting to the situation, Dr. Ayifah noted that while government’s budgetary allocations to the school feeding programme has seen an 80% increment in recent years, the disbursement of funds tend to be a challenge.

“And so in our budget analysis over time, we’ve realized that budget credibility not only in Ghana school feeding programme but in all our social protection programmes has been an issue. The point is why would you allocate so much and when it comes to you have wide deviations in disbursing? If you look at the Ministry’s budget, I mean, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection budget for this year and over time that is how it mostly looks like.

“Always you realize that the school feeding share is very huge in terms of proportion to other allocations and so if you’ve really allocated it why don’t you disburse? And what we’ve realized, I means some of the analysis that we’ve done also shows that at the end of the year we find out that the allocated amount are actually given just that they’re given late. But the point is that once you’ve contracted these caterers, why wouldn’t you give them the money? Where do you expect them to get the money from?” he said.

He noted that the delayed disbursement of funds has severely affected service delivery and consequently teaching and learning in some areas.

“Our social protection mirror report 2021 looking at citizens’ assessment, when we spoke to caterers, we spoke to school authorities, they actually indicated that the fact that one, they have to even go borrowing just so that they can prepare meals for the school children.

“And Kofi touched on something about looking at the fact that it actually affects instructional time, the fact of the matter is that some caterers we interviewed also even indicated that because they have to go in search of money and sometimes virtually beg to get items on credit, they delay in preparing the food and that affects instructional hours.

“And so we just don’t understand why government you allocate every year, then at best you shouldn’t allocate, but you don’t allocate and fail to adequately disburse,” he said.

He urged the Finance Ministry to timeously disburse funds to the Gender Ministry in order for it to carry out its mandate smoothly.