Accra, March 25, GNA - About 24 million Ghana cedis had been disbursed on the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) as at the beginning of this month, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment announced on Tuesday.

Out of this amount, about 21.82 million Ghana cedis was from the government while about 2.17 million Ghana cedis was from the Netherlands government.

Taking his turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra, Mr. Kwadwo Adjei- Darko explained that a total of 987 schools with over 477,714 pupils across the country were currently benefiting from the programme. He said the programme had been planned to cover 1,556 schools by the end of the year, which would be gradually scaled up to cover 2,889 schools with 1.4 million pupils by the end of 2010.

"Despite the problems, the GSFP has contributed significantly in increasing school enrolment, attendance and retention, and has contributed to improving the nutritional status of children in the beneficiary schools," Mr Adjei-Darko indicated.

Enumerating some achievements of the Ministry, Mr Adjei-Darko said under the rationalization of district assemblies for efficiency programme, 32 new district assemblies had been created over the past five months of which 31 had been established and another 31 elevated to municipal and metropolitan status. This, he said, was aimed at improving managerial efficiency and sharing of equitable resources.

He said a district development funding facility, dubbed: the District Development Fund (DDF) aimed at improving institutional performance and increase discretionary funding to Metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDA) had been introduced and endorsed by cabinet in principle.

He said a draft operational manual for implementation had also been prepared while the Ministry was assessing the district assemblies for their readiness to implement the facility.

Under environmental sanitation, Mr Adjei-Darko said the Ministry had revised the national environmental sanitation policy, which was now ready for cabinet's consideration while efforts were being made to collect data for the sanitation strategy and action plan as well as development of a strategic environmental investment plan. To improve upon the coverage of sanitation services, 1,800 sanitation guards were recruited, trained and deployed at MMDAs to assist environmental health officers in education and enforcement of sanitation laws and regulations.

On the next phase of Odaw Drainage project, Mr Darko indicated that the Ministry had continued the implementation of the Phase III, comprising the reconstruction of 2.75 kilometres drainage from Alajo Bridge to Apenkwa overhead.

A Fortis Bank loan of 5.199 million euro and Dutch government Grant of 3.198 million euro have been approved by Parliament to continue the second phase.

The Minister noted that all the initial 138 district assemblies had been supported to deliver substantial infrastructure projects to support agriculture, social and human development like feeder roads, dams, wind pumps, markets, slaughter houses, basic schools, health compounds and boreholes. 25 March 08