The 2023 Auditor-General’s report on the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) has uncovered a financial irregularity, resulting in an excess payment of GH¢2.3 million to food suppliers.
Launched in 2005, the programme now serves meals to over 4 million students in 12,000 public basic schools, covering all 216 districts in the country.
The Programme currently allocates GH₵1.50 per child, which is very low enough to feed a child a nutritious meal.
The Auditor-General’s team conducted a comprehensive audit of the Ghana School Feeding Programme from August to October 2022, covering the national secretariat in Accra, Ashanti, Eastern, Greater Accra, Upper East, and Western Regional offices. The audit also examined the programme’s activities over a five-year period, from 2017 to 2022.
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The audit also revealed that the meals provided by the cooks were insufficient to sustain the students throughout the school day, falling short of the necessary nutritional standards.
The audit uncovered unauthorized payments of GH¢274,235.29 made to caterers who were not officially contracted for the programme.
The national secretariat failed to collect an outstanding amount of GH¢831,776.00 generated from the sale of caterer application forms.
The Auditor-General recommends that the National Coordinator implement measures to identify, retrieve, and recover all outstanding overpayments and wrongful payments made to caterers, as well as funds generated from the sale of application forms.
