Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have identified the Ministry of Finance (MoF) as the causative party for the lack of food supply in Senior High Schools (SHS) due to its failure to transfer monies owing to the National Food Buffer Stock Company.
Seven months into the year, the MoF has failed to distribute the approximately GH2 billion outlined in the distribution plan for the free SHS Programme. Until this occurs, the ongoing food crisis scenario will persist.
Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), claims that the government owes the food suppliers for the Free SHS Program more than GH300million, some of which stretch back as long as 2004.
He noted that the present rise in food inflation, which is hovering at 30.1 percent, has made this situation worse. According to data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) for May 2022, consumer inflation has increased by over four times to 27.6 percent.
"The reason there is a cycle of food shortage in certain SHS is that most of these vendors are just broke. The predicament is made worse by the present food inflation crisis. "Unfortunately, the cycle of food shortages in SHS will unfortunately become a culture like the capitation grant delays until MoF is able to release Free SHS funding on schedule, which I don't see occurring in the medium-term," he added.
When the B&FT enquired further about why the MoF should be held responsible for this rather than the Ministry of Education (MoE), he stated that investigations have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the latter has little control over the events.
Clearly, the Ministry of Finance is the problem. Since there is so much food in Ghana, there is no food shortage in the nation, according to the buffer stock with whom I have been in contact. Apart from flour, there is food; the only deficit in the food delivery chain is flour.
Some contractors are due money as far back as September 2021, but the finance ministry is not making payments. Given that their money is encumbered by debt, how can they continue to supply? Neither the Ghana Education Service (GES) nor the Ministry of Education are to blame, he insisted.
He reaffirmed that unless the MoF makes it a point of routinely and on time releasing cash to the suppliers, it would be impossible for this shortage issue to be resolved since they cannot keep borrowing money to acquire food supplies at enormous amounts for supply in the schools.
Peter Anti, Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), emphasised that the fundamental issue is debt, which is connected to financial assistance from the MoF, making it plausible to attribute the crises to them. However, he expressed concern that the MoE has not been transparent in informing us that they have not had the portion of their budget that was actually spent.
"As a result, I will not hold MoF exclusively accountable. I'll leave it at the MoE's door as well, and I'll wait for them to inform us that the MoF hasn't spent its budgeted allotment before we can determine who is really at fault," he said.
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