"Saboteurs Within School Feeding Secretariat"- Elvis Afriyie

The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, says “there are some elements within the Secretariat" who are trying to sabotage the School Feeding Programme. But he says, the NDC administration is bent on “cleaning” up the system. “That is the simple matter…there are people within the Secretariat behind this whole thing. I am telling you this for a fact. A lot of conflict of interest…they’re the ones behind this praying that these changes are not made, but I can assure you that we’ll not let that happen, we’ll clean up the system,” he assured on PEACEFM’s “Kokrokoo”. The School Feeding Programme, which was began by the previous government, is now facing serious crisis as the ruling NDC government is asking all caterers to re-apply, a situation which has compelled some of the caterers to seek justice at the court. Mr. Afriyie Ankrah revealed that upon assumption of office, they realized that most of the caterers did not have binding contracts with the School Feeding Secretariat. “Others,” he further disclosed, “had exceeded their boundaries by providing food for more students than necessary.” He allayed the fears of the public by stating that the confusion that seems to have rocked the programme is temporal, attributing it to the “pain of change,” and reiterated government’s resolve to bring the culprit(s) to book. “This is a temporal situation. People will always resist attempts to cut off their source of acquiring illegal wealth. It’s the pain of change…We’ll clean it up, we’ll not allow things to continue.” “I just want to sound this note of caution. Some of us have kept quiet all these months because we want to do things in a systematic manner, but we know so much…but those hiding behind and pushing these things are going to be exposed at the right time and they will pay for it,” he strongly avowed. Source: Kwadwo Asante/Peacefmonline