School Feeding Caterers Smiling As Government Settled GHC300million Debts

The government says all debts owed former caterers of the Ghana School Feeding Programme totaling GH È» 285, 305,525.00 have been settled.

Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisah Djaba said with the settlement of the delayed claims means an end to the several agitations by the caterers over the non-payment of their arrears.

The former caterers had embarked on demonstrations to demand the full payment of arrears owed them by the government for services rendered in 2016/17 academic year after their contracts ended in July 2017.

Otiko Afisah Djaba

Another achievement she outlined is the launch of the ‘Helpline of Hope’ call center which forms part of the Single Window Citizens System to receive complaints and redirect them to the appropriate quarters for the needed attention on a time bound of 24/7 basis with multilingual customer support.

Projecting into 2018, the MInister charged participants to ensure that social protection becomes a tool for formalising the informal sector which is dominated by vulnerable persons, as well as a tool for addressing the progress of rural development.

The Director of Social Protection, Dr. Rita Owusu-Amankwah, in her address, stated that the directorate has an ambitious work plan for 2018 and therefore entreated stakeholders to collaborate to leverage efforts and resources in the implementation of the activities in the work plan which is in line with the Social Protection Implementation plan.

She stated that the efforts of the Ministry and its stakeholders can only become useful when it touches the lives of the poor and vulnerable people in Ghana.