Govt to prevent future food shortages under Free SHS – Kwakye Ofosu assures

Felix Kwakye Ofosu, acting spokesperson to President John Dramani Mahama has assured that going forward the government will put adequate measures in place to address the shortfalls in feeding under the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme.

This follows the release of GHS200 million to address the shortfalls about two weeks ago.

Speaking in an interview on the Channel One Newsroom on Sunday, January 2, Ofosu highlighted the poor planning and implementation of the education policy by the erstwhile government, which led to a situation where schools were reopened without adequate food supplies.

“Beyond that GHS200 million was released about a week ago or a week and a half ago to address the shortfalls in feeding. Again, because of poor planning and poor implementation of the education policy, we had a situation where schools were going to be opened and yet there was no food available to feed the students,” he stated.

He noted that when stakeholders in the education sector, particularly headmasters, requested that the government defer the opening date, the request was refused, resulting in schools reopening without food.

“So upon taking office, President Mahama took decisive action and within a few days, he ordered that food be evacuated to the schools. In addition to that, GHS200 million was released to the various schools through the Ghana Education Service to procure food for the students,” Kwakye Ofosu added.

Kwakye Ofosu assured that going forward, adequate measures will be put in place to ensure that there is enough food to feed the students.

“So for now, that has been done and going forward, adequate measures will be put in place to ensure that we have enough food to feed the students,” he noted.