Aunty Adjoa, a school feeding caterer, has voiced her concerns over the current amount allocated for school feeding programs, describing the GH₵1.20 per child as insufficient and unfair. According to her, “The very sad part of this is that with the GH₵1.20 per person, we also pay taxes of GH₵0.30 pesewas on them.” Aunty Adjoa
The post School Feeding Programme: We pay GH₵0.30 tax on GH₵1.20 grant; this is unfair – Caterer first appeared on 3News.
Aunty Adjoa, a school feeding caterer, has voiced her concerns over the current amount allocated for school feeding programs, describing the GH₵1.20 per child as insufficient and unfair.
According to her, “The very sad part of this is that with the GH₵1.20 per person, we also pay taxes of GH₵0.30 pesewas on them.”
Aunty Adjoa explained that the taxes reduce the already meager funds, leaving caterers with even less money than promised.
“When you’re believing that for your hard work you will get this amount, at the end of the day we only get a fraction of the amount. We also make our calculations too; the women are crying and weeping. Already the money delays for a great deal, and when it gets to us, it’s not enough and doesn’t meet our expectations. We have to go for loans. It’s hard, and we do not have someone to represent our issues,” she told JB, Co-host of Yen Nsempa on Onua FM on July 2, 2024.
The caterer emphasized the growing financial burden faced by caterers in providing meals for school children stating that, “In this day and age and how things are going, food for a person amounts to GH₵5, and that is even not enough for the children. But because we love the party, we sacrifice to work.”.
She called on the government to increase the funding from GH₵1.20 to GH₵1.50 per child as “at the end of the day, if the government comes to us and say they will give us an amount of GH₵1.20 per child, I believe that is a disservice to the country and to us,” she added.
The caterer highlighted that discussions regarding an increment have been ongoing, with assurances from the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, that the amount would be raised to GH₵1.50, an initiative yet to be implemented.
Her comment comes after the Government of Ghana says it has fulfilled its commitment to caterers under the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) by paying the arrears for the first term of the 2023/2024 academic year.
The caterers have been compensated for these 54 days at a rate of One Ghana Cedi and Twenty Pesewas (GH₵1.20) per child per school day.
They are however urging the government to expedite the promised increase and address the tax deductions that further strain their limited resources.
The post School Feeding Programme: We pay GH₵0.30 tax on GH₵1.20 grant; this is unfair – Caterer first appeared on 3News.
