Tumu (U/W), June 6, GNA - One major challenge affecting the monitoring and evaluation of the Ghana School Feed Programme (GSFP) in the Sissala East and Wa East Districts is the lack of a permanent Desk Officers.

Mr Emmanuel Kudola, Sissala East District Assembly Desk Officer made this known to the Ghana News Agency in an interview at Tumu in the Upper West Region.

He said the District Assembly Desk Officers who were assigned the additional responsibility lacked the time needed to play the role expected of them.

Mr Kudola said lack of logistic for the Desk Officers, delays in release of funds as well as ineffective School Implementation Committee, were challenges needed to be resolved at the grassroots level to boost the effectiveness of the programme.

Mr Moses Luri, Executive Director of the Sissala Literacy and Development Programme (SILDEP) said an assessment of the GSFP carried out by his organisation in the two Districts revealed certain top management constrains that needed to be addressed in order to make the programme more beneficial to the pupils.

These constrains he mentioned include issues relating to governance, transparency and accountability, poor information dissemination as well as weak capacity building for the staff of the programme,

Explaining issues regarding governance, Mr Luri said generally, majority of the citizenry were aware of the programme's implementation but did not have the requisite knowledge about the governing principles that underpinned its operations.

He said the objective of boosting local food production remained highly unrecognised among the public with caterers and farmers disregarded as intended beneficiaries.

He said pupils were the most thought off as the programme beneficiaries.

Mr Luri noted that the assessment also revealed that the funding source of the programme was mostly linked to the Government with little recognition for the Netherlands Government as a funding partner.

In view of these setbacks, Mr Luri said SILDEP would continue to sensitise the people for them to have adequate knowledge on the programme and appealed to the authorities to also ensure timely release of funds and other logistics to boost the effectiveness of the programme.