Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon. Cynthia Mamle Morrison has said that caterers who have been contracted to prepare hot meals for all final year Junior High School (JHS) students and their teachers have been ordered to use only locally produced rice, popularly known as “Ghana Rice” or face sanctions.
She says there is enough stock of locally grown rice by Ghanaian farmers at the National Food Buffer Stock Company and on the market to meet the demand created by the presidential directive.
Each student would also enjoy an egg every day to complement the hot rice meals; government say it is part of measures aimed at boosting the patronage and consumption of locally grown rice and farmed eggs produced by Ghanaian poultry farmers.
Some 584, 000 final year JHS students and 146,000 staff both in public and private schools would receive daily hot meal packages from Monday, 24th August to Friday 18th September 2020, “to ensure full observation of COVID-19 safety protocols”, according to President Akufo-Addo after reports that some of the student were “going hungry in complying with COVID-19 protocols”.
Speaking in an interview on Kumasi-based Angel FM on Monday morning, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection and MP for Agona West, Hon, Cynthia Mamle Morrison said all measures have been put in place to ensure that the meals get to the students as planned.
She said caterers under the Ghana School Feeding Programme have been recalled whiles more caterers would be employed into schools where there are no kitchens; dispatch motorbike riders would also be contracted to send the meals too hard to reach schools; headmasters would taste each meal and write their comments on a daily basis to ensure quality.
She added that for each day, a particular rice meal would be on the menu for all schools across the country.
