The Dutch Government has released GH¢12.8 million to the Ghana School Feeding Programme Mr Kwame Nuoko, Technical Advisor to the Programme (GSFP), announced this during a civil society platform dialogue meeting in Tamale on Thursday.
The Ghana Government and other donors are to provide the remaining GH¢ 52.2 million of the GH¢65 million budgeted for the Programme in the 2009.
Fifteen organisations take part in the dialogue which work to influence policy decisions and to monitor the effectiveness or otherwise of
GSFP.
Mr Nuoko said the first release of funds for the third quarter had been done and would be disbursed to all beneficiary schools next week adding that "the future of the programme is brighter because more donor support would soon join the Programme including Bill Gates Foundation".
He said the Programme currently covers 656,000 pupils in public schools and the figure covered about 22 per cent of all pupils in the public schools in the country.
The Technical Advisor said the programme was currently undergoing managerial restructuring and that had accounted for the delay in the release
of funds.
Mr Daniel Batidam, Governance Advisor at the Dutch Embassy, reminded the Government and the management of the GSFP to be aware that mismanagement of funds meant for the programme would not be taken lightly.
He said the Dutch Government withdrew from the programme in 2007 because of financial mismanagement and warned that it would not hesitate to do same when the need arose.
Mr Batidam commended the activities of the civil society platform for their initiatives to monitor and ensure efficiency of the programme since such watchdog role would be in the interest of the Programme.
He urged Ghanaians and the Government to always ensure proper accountability of funds released by donors because the international donors wanted their donations to be used for the intended purposes.
Mr John Issah Alhassan, Coordinator of the Civil Society Platform on the GSFP, said most schools had started using locally manufactured products to feed pupils on the programme due to the platforms consistent advocacy.
He said the civil society platform was self financing through individual organization's contributions and had helped the working group to achieve a lot of successes.
Mr Alhassan said they aimed at coordinating efforts of both Dutch and Ghanaian organisations in providing complementary services to the GSFP and raising emerging issuers for discussion.