WHO IS CHECKING THIS...SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAM.

In the land of the blind, the one-eye man is a king. this was the case of this boy who holds in his hands a ball of banku in what is suppose to be groundnut soup without fish or meat but he commands crowd of other children who were not lucky enough to have a taste of that days meal. His crowd hopes to get a bit of what is in the bowl to satisfy their hunger.

It is break time in Besoso District Assembly (D.A) Primary School in Fantiakwa District in the Eastern Region of Ghana. over 250 primary schools children queue for food. Each child homes to be fed by the school feeding program but unfortunately, only a hand full were served. The menu was Banku and soup. The first 50 plus were privileged to have their food served with a piece of meat. The rest had to eat their banku without any fish or meat and even that is considered being lucky as many could not be served because the food was not enough.

This was not free food or a gesture from a philanthropist trying to do good to these under privileged children, it is the Government funded school feeding program we are talking about.

The school feeding program was meant to feed primary school children in some selected Government school. The intention of the program is to provide a well balance and nutritious meal to children who are believed to be coming from poor homes and are malnourished but what these kids are eating in some of the schools in the name of school feeding, is really bizarre.

Food prepared for these school children are usually made with rotten food stuff which have less market value simply because cooks can not afford the right ingredient due to tight budget.Others also do so just maximize profit for their selfish gains. Soups are often diluted so much that its becomes difficult to differentiate groundnut soup from palm nut soup.

Menus under this program was said to include a well balance diet, to help reduce malnourishment from these less privilege children and to also motivate their interest in school attendance.


" We are serving these children out of our own pocket...no one is paying attention to us.For the past four months, we have not been payed, we have been borrowing and purchasing food stuffs on ctredit" one of the cooks told Michael Akrofi, our news reporter who was at the Besoso DA Primary school.

Since the introduction of the school feeding program, several media reports have revealed that due to poor supervision and party-politics, food served to these vulnerable children are not nutritious at all.
there have been reports on how kids are being fed with maggots infected rice or beans and cooks using food coluor in place of tomatoes to prepare Jollof-Rice.

If the Disrict Assemblies are in charge of such programs then whose responsibility is it, to ensure that the proper thing is done? Each year huge amounts are quoted by government in this area so who is keeping these monies meant to feed these poor children?
when we seek for answers then the blame game begins but we keep asking WHO IS CHECKING THIS?

Source; Michael Akrofi, E.R