School feeding: GH¢800K from form sales missing – Auditor-General
An amount of GH¢831,776 realised from the sale of forms for the selection of caterers for the Ghana School Feeding Programme for the 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 academic years has not been accounted for.
This was contained in a performance audit report conducted by the Auditor-General on the management of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
According to the report, the Metropolitan, Municipal, District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) sold a total of 21,880 forms at GH¢50 each.
This realised GH¢1,094,000, however, only GH¢262,224 was recovered.
“The MMDCEs sold a total of 21,880 application forms at GH¢50 each and realised a total amount of GH¢1,094,000.00 from the sale. However, the NS recovered GH¢262,224.00. The remaining amount of GH¢831,776.00 was still outstanding as at the time of the audit.
“The correspondences indicated that the National Coordinator, through the Sector Ministry, sought the assistance of the Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGD&RD), and the Head of the Local Government Services to retrieve the outstanding amount from the affected MMDCEs, and a reminder to the defaulting MMDCEs to pay the outstanding amount by 31 August 2022. However, as at the time of the audit, six of the 225 MMDCEs had responded,” a part of the report read.
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The report also revealed that unwholesome food is being served to basic school pupils under the programme.
It disclosed that mouldy corn dough was used in some of the schools visited by a team to assess the progress and performance of the initiative.
Jollof rice and other dishes were also prepared without any protein, contrary to the requirements of the programme.
“We noted during our visits to the schools that, not all the caterers used wholesome food items to prepare meals.
“Our interactions with the pupils in all the schools we visited generally indicated that they had complained to the teachers about either the lack of or inadequate fish, foreign materials in their meals, bad palm oil served with watery beans, and the bad smell and taste of food,” the A-G’s report said.