The disbursement covers the remaining five days of the third term of the 2015/2016 academic year and 65 days of the first term of the 2016/2017 academic year.

A statement signed by the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ms Otiko Afisah Djaba, said outstanding arrears for the second and the third terms of the 2016/2017 academic year "will be cleared by the end of July 2017".

That, it said, was "in line with the government's demonstrable commitment to sustain the programme".

It reminded caterers that per the terms and conditions of their contract with the GSFP, "they have an obligation to serve the children one hot nutritious meal every school day and that no caterer will be paid for no services rendered".

Expectation

When contacted, the Head of Public Relations of the GSFP, Mr Siiba Alfa, said with the release of the money, the caterers were expected to continue to cook for the pupils.

He stressed that "plans are far advanced to clear all the arrears by the end of July this year".

"The government has taken the issue at heart and is working frantically to ensure that the programme is sustained," he added.

The GSFP is one of the important government initiatives to encourage needy children to go to school. Under it, pupils in deprived schools are given one nutritious meal a day.

But the programme has faced a lot of challenges in terms of finance, characterised by delays in releasing feeding money for payment to the about 5,000 caterers preparing meals for about 1.7 million pupils in 216 districts in the country.

On some occasions, some caterers suspended preparing meals for the pupils because of delayed payment of their money.