School Feeding Secretariat to begin payment of caterers Wednesday

School feeding caterers in some regions across the country will be receiving parts of their arrears from today, Wednesday, June 8, according to the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) Secretariat.

The GSFP Secretariat says the payments will start from regions that have lower school enrolment and lower amounts.

The Communications Officer at the GSFP Secretariat, Edmond Gyebi, made these revelations in an interview with 3FM’s Sunrise hosted by Alfred Ocansey while reacting to the agitations by caterers.

The Greater Accra Regional School Feeding Caterers Association on Tuesday held a press conference to react to the unpaid arrears and how it was affecting their work.

They threatened not to cook for the pupils should the government refuse to release funds for the payments.

Reacting to the development, Mr. Gyebi explained that “we are going to start payment from today”.

“We are going to pay regions with lower enrollment and lower amounts. These are Savannah, Volta, Western North, Oti, Bono, Ahafa, Bono East and North-East regions”.

Mr. Gyebi explained that “the government has given us an amount of GH¢50 million out of the over GH¢238million”.

“We are paying some regions and leaving others because of the amount we have received now. We are paying 68 cooking days which forms the third term of 2021 academic year.”

The Communications Officer urged the caterers to be calm and bear with the Secretariat since the Controller and Accountant-General has given an assurance of the release of more funds to settle every caterer by next week.

“They should understand that things are not always going to be like this always. We apologize for the delay but within the week, the remaining amount would be released. Within next week, up to Wednesday next week, every caterer in Ghana should receive his or her money. That is the assurance we have received from the Controller and Accountant-General.”

Deductions

Mr. Gyebi warned that those who do not cook on certain days will be deducted because they did not work on those days.

“Any caterer who has not cooked, there will be a deduction on his/her money. We call it non-cooking-days. All the days that they did not cook, trust me, they will be deducted from their monies.”

source: Kweku Antwi-Otoo|3news.com|Ghana