The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection and the management of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) has assured all Ghanaians that government is firmly committed to paying the arrears to GSFP Caterers.

It said “Since March 2017 to date, government has released One Hundred and Fifty-One million, One Hundred and Fifty-Two Ghana cedis Seventy-Two Pesewas (GHC 151, 152, 850.72) to caterers aimed at sustaining and improving upon the delivery of the programme”.

In a statement issued and signed by the National Coordinator, Dr. Kwame Adu-Nsiah yesterday, it said in March 2017, this new government paid twenty-five (25) days of arrears for the Third Term of 2015/2016 academic year (32, 935, 536.80) left unpaid.

It continued that in June 2017, the Ministry of Finance released in two tranches; the first 5 days to clear the remaining arrears for 2015/2016 academic year. And the second was payment to caterers for 65 days for all of the first Term of 2015/16 academic year, which amounted to GHC 6,593,936.80 and GHC 81,206,585.12 respectively.

According to the statement, an amount of GHC 9,416,792.00 was also released for 7 days in October 2017 as part payment for the second Term of 2016/2017 academic year.

Again, it stated that in the same month (October 2017), an amount of GHC 21,482,099.20, was released to caterers to cover 16 days for the same academic year 2016/2017.

“In all, from March to October 2017 alone, the Government of Nana Akufo-Addo has released a total of One Hundred and Fifty-One million, One Hundred and Fifty Two Ghana cedis Seventy-Two Pesewas (GHC 151, 152, 850.72) to caterers to cover 118 days of arrears”, it further said.

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, it said has requested for the remaining balance from the Finance Ministry to defray all outstanding arrears for 2016/2017 academic year.

“We have been given firm assurance that our request would be approved. We would like to use this medium to appeal to all caterers to exercise restraint and to be patient as we are making strenuous efforts to defray all arrears”, it assured.