Students going to school to be confronted with feeding challenges does not bode well for our transformational agenda in which basic education is key in improving lives and livelihoods.
It is in this regard that all stakeholders in the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) must look within and identify the challenges and the alleged bad nuts conspiring to derail the gains of the otherwise brilliant and beneficial programme, and deal decisively with them.
Gains
That the rationale behind the programme is good cannot be disputed. What began as a partnership with the Netherlands government, under the JA Kufuor administration, has been largely successful. It has ensured increased enrolment in many schools, especially in the rural communities. This is in spite of the occasional hiccups in food supplies to some schools.
We live in a nation in which most communities, particularly the northern regions, are caught in a cycle of poverty and challenges of accessing holistic basic education. The School Feeding Programme, in this regard, has been very beneficial, with several hundreds of thousands benefiting from it in many communities in the country.
Even today, despite the challenges, the verdict out there is that it is a vision that must be sustained.
Concerns
Unfortunately, between those in charge of the programme and caterers/suppliers, the truth about the cause of the challenges is still a rumour instead of facts that have been put together through investigations and interrogations, as well as a total official audit of the initiative.
Readings into the causes of the eroding successes, however, suggest ‘sabotage’ on the part of some greedy actors in the chain.
Media reports about the alleged rot assailing the initiative have cited absence of effective monitoring of the programme at all levels as a major cause of the problem. This has led to concerns about supply levels, quality of food, caterers’ complaints and how genuine those complaints are, among others.
Poor tradition
Unfortunately, the story about African development initiatives starting well, with all the fanfare one could imagine, only for it to slide into oblivion appears to be case with the School Feeding Programme.
The gains had initially been sustained appreciably, until some politics entered into the mainstream activity of picking caterers. That, in the opinion of ordinary citizens, was the beginning of the woes of the programme intended at boosting education and developing our human resource base.
Deliver or quit
At this crucial point in the history of the programme, it is our opinion that the way forward, after any investigations, is for caterers and suppliers as well as those in charge to be made to sign some form of ‘deliver or quit’ performance contract.
When we cite corruption in public life, it should not always be about the politician and appointee or thieving public officer alone. Actors like caterers and matrons who have been employed to ensure that initiatives like School Feeding Programme work should be policed rigidly to ensure that they perform.
That is the only way we can sustain all initiatives that we generate, as part of our transformational agenda, to deliver benefit to the ordinary citizen.
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