|
|
Ghana School
Feeding Programme crumbles
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Accra, Sept 16, Ghanadot - Basic school children across the
country will be starved of their favourite hot meal on their
first day of reopening, because the school feeding programme
is in crisis.
Reports reaching the Ghanadot across the length and breadth
of Ghana revealed that there is a scuffle between the
administrator of the programme and caterers.
In the Upper East Region between caterers appointed under
the erstwhile NPP administration and those recently
appointed over who has the right to prepare the food for the
children.
The old caterers had reported to duty only to find out that
their jobs had been taken over by the new 'recruits'.
The struggle for supremacy between the caterers is rife in
the Kassina-Nankana District as well as the Bolgatanga
Municipality.
It is not clear who will be given the mandate to serve the
meal.
Some of the old caterers have also sued the district
assemblies for illegally terminating their contracts.
The Upper East coordinator of the School Feeding Programme
who described the developments as unfortunate pledged to
find an amicable solution to the problem.
But the seeming crisis appears to be nationwide.
In the Ashanti Region, reports have it that some NPP
activists have threatened a new caterer in Kordea to desist
from preparing the dish to the school children.
They claim, they do not know the new caterer contracted by
the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly to prepare the meals for
their children and will not allow to cook.
They have warned of dire consequences if the lady should go
ahead with the cooking.
Whilst the Central Region did not record any violent scenes,
at least not yet, the school children have been completely
deserted, with no sign of caterers, old or new, to prepare
food for them.
In the Central Region, the old caterers have abandoned their
duty post to avert any confrontation with newly recruited
ones.
Others complained of government’s indebtedness to them and
for which reason they will not be able prepare the hot meal
any longer for the children.
The school feeding programme was instituted in 2006 to
provide at least one hot meal for basic school children.
The essence is to improve enrollment at the basic level of
education.
Ghanadot
Women call for affirmative action
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot
Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) together
with the Women Manifesto Coalition has vigorously called on
the Mills-led administration to adopt and implement the much
trumpeted affirmative action on women’s participation in
political decision-making in the country.
Madam Beatrice Allah Mensah, a member of the Women Manifesto
Coalition made the call at public forum in Accra, yesterday.
According to her, the purpose of the Affirmative action is
to adopt and implement gender activities, help bring out
competencies and abilities of women, help increase women’s
representation and as well create platform for addressing
problems regarding fairness and equality in governance.
She noted that in order to make women available in
representation there is a need to establish a Women’s
Leadership Academy which will identify young promising
interested ladies for leadership.
The group observed that the 40% of women representation in
parliament as promised by the government had not yet come to
a reality.
The group further observed that so far the Council of State
has 22 men as against three women, while 25 diplomatic
positions are made up of men and seven women.
Also, in the area of cabinet ministers 15 are men whilst
four of them are women, Regional Ministers nine men and a
woman and 166 Metropolitan Municipal and District Chief
Executives being men as against 11 women.
Mr. Frank Wilson Bodza, the Programmes Manager of WiLDAF on
his part said WILDAF had taken a further step to provide
analysis of Affirmative Action policy for women’s
participation in political decision making in Ghana.
He further urged the government to develop a concrete
affirmative action policy for the Ghanaian women to enable
them contribute their quota to the socio-economic
development of the country.
Mr. Bodza emphasized that many activities have been done by
various organizations to achieve Affirmation Action but the
two women’s rights organization have been the lead champions
for affirmative action policy in Ghana.
He noted that in 2006, the coalition organized a 10-day
capacity building workshop on governance where the coalition
chose to lobby government to adopt the affirmative action
policy in the country.
However he added the Ministry of Women’s and Children
Affairs response was that the directive was not backed by
white paper as it was only a desire and advised women to be
more aggressive and proactive in the pursuit of Affirmative
Action.
Moreover he stressed, in April 2008, WILDAF Ghana, ABANTU
for development with sponsorship from Canadian Crossroads
International (CCI) organized a roundtable discussion on
“Affirmative action now” campaign Objective to enable
participants to ascertain the status of the Ghanaian
government’s commitment to the implementation of Ghana’s
affirmative action and development of an affirmative action
policy.
Ghanadot
|
