Accra, June 4, GNA - A total of 987 schools with a pupil population of 447, 714 are benefiting from the School Feeding programme in 138 districts as at December 31, last year. The Greater Accra Region has the highest number of schools benefiting from the programme with 239 schools and a pupil population of 112,272.

The Ashanti Region has 251 schools, the Brong Ahafo, 167 and Upper East and Upper West regions have the lowest number of schools with 18 and 17 schools respectively. Mr. Kwadwo-Agyei Darko, Minister of Local Government, Rural Development and Environment said these in Parliament when responding to a question on the number of schools benefiting from the programme as at the end of December last year.

When questioned whether few schools in the three northern regions, areas known to be relatively poor, were benefiting from the programme, the Minister said there were other organisations such as the Catholic Relief Services and the World Food Programme currently running similar feeding programmes in the three regions.

In response to another question on why the North Tongu constituency had been left out in the creation of district assemblies, Mr Agyei-Darko said an attempt was made in 2004 to create the North Tongu constituency as a district but problems were encountered with the choice of Juapong as the district capital.

"I wish to state that the Ministry is still studying the whole situation so as not to encounter what happened in 2004 again," the Minister said.