The Ministry of Education is blaming the Heads of some institutions in the three Northern regions for the delay in the payment of feeding grants for the schools.

The Ministry argues that the failure of the Heads to submit the relevant data to the ministry for the payment of the grants is to blame for the accumulation of the arrears.

Government is yet to pay the feeding grant the schools for the last two terms but a Deputy Minister of Education in charge of pre-tertiary education, Alex Kyeremeh told Citi News, the processes before the grants are released demanded that the heads of schools, submit the documentation for payment as soon as possible.

“When the headquarters receive [the documents] from the regions, they have to do the audit to make sure that it conforms to the actual number of students in the school. They have their own way of checking before they send it to the Ministry of Finance before it goes to the auditor general also to do due diligence.”

He admitted that the processes involved for the payment of grants may result in an academic term’s delay however Head teachers’ delay in submitted the necessary files for their payment is to blame for the compounding arrears.

“The problem is not even not at times with Ghana Education Service or the units of finance but as a result of the inaction of some of the heads. They delay so much in sending the inputs to the Ghana Education Service Headquarters.

They will agree with me that it is based on their inputs that we will be able to determine they are supposed to pay to the schools,” he said.

The Headmaster of the Tamale Senior High School (TAMASCO) at the school’s 65th Anniversary celebration, lamented “Feeding grants have not been forthcoming and for two terms schools in the three regions of the north have not received feeding grants.”

Shaibu Adams Wilberforce in his capacity as leader of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) thereby made a passionate appeal to government to immediately reimburse the schools management to prevent any temporary closure.

‘Upper East schools yet to receive feeding grant’

Head teachers of some second cycle schools in the region had told Citi News off record that government has not paid any of the feeding grant arrears for the second and third terms of the 2015/2016 academic year.

They said even though they have been asked to re-open schools for the 2016/2017 academic year, it would be difficult to feed the students.

Government’s delay in releasing the feeding grants initially forced the closure of many public schools in the three Northern regions in June.

citifmonline.com