School Feeding Caterers Serve Unwholesome Food- Auditor-General’s Report

An Auditor-General’s report has discovered that unwholesome meals are served to basic school pupils under the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).

A performance audit conducted into the Programme after its introduction 19 years ago suggested foreign materials are sometimes found in the meals with inadequate protein, and unwholesome foodstuffs used in their preparation.

Caterers are said to serve watery beans and meals with bad smell and taste with the report citing some schools where these worrying concerns were raised.

“We noted during our visits to the schools that, not all the caterers used wholesome food items to prepare meals. For instance, at the Ankyernyin D/A Basic School, we observed in the presence of the Western Regional Coordinator and the caterer, that the cooks prepared jollof without any protein contrary to the requirements in the National Operations Manual. Also, the cook at the Kanfakrom D/A school in the Western Region used corn dough that had gone mouldy to prepare banku for the pupils.”

Students in these schools are said to have confirmed the recurrence to the auditors, noting the caterers continued serving the same meal despite drawing their attention through their teachers, the 2022 Report released by the A-G said.
“Our interactions with the pupils in all the schools we visited generally indicated that they had complained to the teachers about either the lack of or inadequate fish, foreign materials in their meals, bad palm oil served with watery beans, and the bad smell and taste of food. However, the caterers still provided poor quality meals for them, hence their difficulty in eating the meals.”