Scores of poor and helpless widows have joined a group of women in Ghana to salute and to thank President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for giving them jobs as coordinators of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
They showered the President with praise and gratitude Wednesday in the Upper East region through a press release that coincided with a demonstration in Accra by an angry army of GSFP caterers who filled the premises of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in a red-band demand for payment of arrears owed them.
“Some of us who are the beneficiaries of the school feeding programme are widows who have to fend for ourselves under strenuous and challenging circumstances. But for this opportunity, our situation could have been worse,” said the statement, which was signed by the convener and GSFP Upper East Regional Coordinator, Georgina Ayamba.
The statement pointed up: “We wish to express our sincere appreciation to His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for the wonderful opportunity offered us to serve Mother Ghana under the Ghana School Feeding Programme as regional and zonal coordinators in the ten regional secretariats of the programme. We are not oblivious or unaware of the huge task handed to us for the successful management of the Ghana School Feeding Programme.”
We Shall Work Very Hard – GSFP Coordinators Assure President
Also contained in the press statement is an assurance from the GSFP coordinators to work hard enough to justify the President’s confidence in them.
“The fact that all of us (the ten regional coordinators and the sixty-eight zonal coordinators) are women and majority of the over 6,000 caterers and 17,000 cooks are also women speaks volumes of government’s commitment to empower more women and increase women’s participation in national development and decision-making [process]. The President has, indeed, exhibited his [unwavering] determination and steadfastness to improve the welfare of the Ghanaian women, who have for far too long been marginalised, to a different level.
“We, therefore, like to assure the President that we would work very hard, diligently and enthusiastically to justify the confidence he has reposed in us to achieve the set benchmarks and take the Ghana School Feeding Programme to a new height,” the statement stressed.
The coordinators also pledged to work closely with agriculture extension officers at every metropolitan, municipal and district assembly “to attain the objectives of the ‘Planting for Food and Jobs [Policy]’ to boost domestic food production for the achievement of national food and nutrition security.”
Otiko Hailed for Resolving Tensions, Confrontations
The coordinators wrapped up their statement with applause for the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisah Djaba, for what they described as ‘first-rate handling’ of the ministry and for resolving some sharp disagreements that characterised the school-feeding initiative early this year.
“We want to use this medium to also express our sincere appreciation to the energetic Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Otiko Afisah Djaba, for exhibiting sterling leadership in steering the affairs of the ministry and offering us the opportunity to serve under the School Feeding Programme. We also appreciate the minister for her ability to address the initial agitations, misunderstandings, confrontations, and tensions that existed among applicants of the School Feeding Programme from regional and zonal coordinators as well as caterers.
“We pledge to give our full support to the minister so that we can collectively implement all the good programmes the ministry is embarking on. We would work assiduously and efficiently in order to improve on the quality of delivery of the School Feeding Programme. You can count on our support all the time and we would not disappoint you,” the coordinators, including the widows who are “now relieved”, said.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
