<\/p>\n
Alban Bagbin<\/strong><\/p>\n SPEAKER OF Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has announced the creation of a committee to investigate the activities of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NFBSC) and National School Feeding Programme (NSFP).<\/p>\n According to him, the ad-hoc committee, comprising members from the Education; Gender, Children and Social Protection; Health; Food and Agriculture; and Finance Committees of Parliament, would aim to determine \u201cthe feasibility and sustainability of the two programmes\u201d and make appropriate recommendations.<\/p>\n Mr. Bagbin said the committee has up to the end of October this year to present its report to the House for consideration.<\/p>\n He stated that the caterers, who ceased operations in May of this year, had been requesting that their grants be increased from 0.97 pesewas to GH\u00a23.00 per child per meal.<\/p>\n He added that a number of them had also threatened to terminate their contracts \u201cdue to months of non-payment of arrears by the government. I am aware of the extent to which the non-payment of these arrears is affecting school enrolment and attendance, particularly in rural communities.\u201d<\/p>\n The Speaker said it is for this reason that on June 23, 2022, as part of Parliament\u2019s oversight responsibility, he paid a surprise visit to the National Food Buffer Stock Company and the School Feeding Programme Secretariat to understand and obtain first-hand information on the state of affairs, as well as assess the situation on the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cI needed empirical prima facie evidence, in order to guide the House on a proper response to this challenge,\u201d he intimated.<\/p>\n He added that at the NFBSC, the Chief Executive Officer, Alhaji Hannan Abdul Wahab, gave a detailed brief of the operations, and highlighted the \u2019s challenges in areas such as stocking for government use, recent price increases in food items, which have stalled the government\u2019s initiative to roll out plans for price stabilisation of goods and services, and the inability of the to stock at the peak of harvest, to name a few.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was not happy that the viability and efficacy of such a laudable programme are being affected by lack of funding, thus compelling management to assess funding from commercial sources such as ADB Limited,\u201d the Speaker said.<\/p>\n He noted that the story was similar at the Ghana School Feeding Programme Secretariat (GFSP), pointing out that during his interaction with the National Coordinator, Gertrude Quashigah, she bemoaned the Ministry of Finance\u2019s inability to pay the caterers on time.<\/p>\n According to him, Mrs. Quashigah, however, insisted forcefully that the information in the public domain about the non-payment of caterers for a period of time was not accurate.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have all accepted the truism that children and youth are the wealth of a nation. The situation we are in now affects the vulnerable school children and future leaders of this country.<\/p>\n \u201cAs political leaders, we are prioritising political development over economic growth.\u00a0 We are neglecting a significant resource of development; the people. As MPs, we cannot fold our arms or follow partisan lines and positions whilst Rome burns.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you are all aware, Parliament is the primary democratic institution which represents the people of this country. Parliament is the only constitutionally legitimate authority to call the government to order and to put things right. We must resolve, here and now, to act quickly and decisively on this matter,\u201d he posited.<\/p>\n BY Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House<\/strong><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Alban Bagbin SPEAKER OF Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has announced the creation of a committee to investigate the activities of the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NFBSC) and National School Feeding Programme (NSFP). According to him, the ad-hoc committee, comprising members from the Education; Gender, Children and Social Protection; Health; Food and Agriculture; and Finance Committees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1149243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[2749,20449,20450,11005,2757,4986],"class_list":["post-1149239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics","tag-cttee","tag-nfbsc","tag-nsfp","tag-probe","tag-sets","tag-speaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}