Guidelines for School Feeding Programme outdoored

Accra, Sept. 18, GNA - Guidelines for the administration of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) was launched in Accra on Thursday to facilitate accounting and auditing purposes of the Programme to ensure its effectiveness.

The 16-page guidelines would provide a single source for auditing staff to obtain important information about the Programme without constraints.

Mr Michael K. Nsowah, National Coordinator of the GSFP, said the initiative demonstrated the secretariat's commitment to collaborate with major stakeholders to deter, prevent and detect malfeasance in the Programme.

He explained that the guidelines would also help in monitoring the quality of food served to schools and measures to compel officials of the programme to maintain adequate accounting records.

Mr Nsowah said the GSFP had over the years been able to increase enrolment by 20.3 per cent in pilot schools, compared to 2.8 in non-beneficial ones in the same district.

He said attendance had also increased by 39 per cent, 5.0 per cent and 13 per cent in three other pilot schools, compared to 9.0 per cent, -5 per cent and -19 per cent in non-GSFP schools within the same districts.

The National Coordinator said 477,714 children in 987 public schools were benefiting and there were plans to scale up the programme to benefit over one million children.

The impact on local food crop production, he said, was also very high, adding that by 2010, the GSFP would inject 147 million dollars into the local economy.

Mr Nsowah said GSFP was commendable and relevant for the country. He stressed the need for the staff of the Programme to reposition themselves to bring changes in the way the Programme was being managed and implemented.

Mr Edward Dua Agyeman, Auditor-General, said the need for the guideline emanated last July during the audit of the programme, when the Audit Service realised that there was no such manual work.

He said in view of the number of beneficiaries involved and the expanding nature of the programme, effective monitoring could be achieved by establishing monitoring units in all regional capitals. Mr Agyeman called for effective management of the programme to dismiss negative perception about the programme.