Wa, May 7, GNA - SEND Foundation, a non-governmental organization, has called on the government to take steps to ensure all institutional arrangements for the award of contracts in respect of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) are within the Procurement Law. It said School Feeding Programme contracts were being awarded in the Upper West Region without due process, thereby undermining transparency, accountability and good governance. The Foundation made the call when it presented its findings at a regional interface meeting at Wa on Wednesday, after monitoring the operations of the programme in the region.

It lauded the programme for increasing school enrolment and reducing absenteeism in the region but said irregular funding was affecting the frequency of feeding in schools in all the districts and therefore called for efforts to be made to address that problem. The Foundation also called on the district assemblies to promote greater involvement of stakeholders such as Ghana Education Service, Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. It said communities were not well informed about the programme in all the districts monitored and that community involvement was essential for the sustainability of the programme. SEND Foundation monitored 10 schools in five districts in the region, namely, Wa Municipal, Nadowli, Jirapa/Lambussie Lawra and Sissala East.

Alhaji Issahaku Alhassan, Regional Deputy Coordinating Director, said the SFP had given true meaning to the Free and Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme and boosted agricultural production for the development of the local economy. He said the policy would help the development of education and appealed to critics not to destroy it in its entirety, saying, "we should see how we can face the challenges and not throw the baby together with the water away". Mr Samuel Zan, Country Director of the Foundation, said monitoring and evaluation of pro-poor policies was not about finding faults with such policies but rather to find out how they could be fine-tuned for the beneficiaries. He noted with concern that the Regional Coordinator of the GSFP found it unnecessary to attend the meeting or send a representative although he was invited, saying that did not augur well for the sustainability of the programme.