The group, that calls itself the Burma Camp Youth Wing, went on a rampage earlier this week, locking up the office of the school feeding program  at Oboabo, a suburb of Tamale in the Northern Region, over what they described as unfair allocation of schools to the region’s caterers.

[contextly_sidebar id=”EAdfMyl7VzNjvISLCOAaybNsd2V7Z6wv”]The group’s leader, Mohammed Kamil, in an earlier interview with Citi News, accused the Minister of Gender and Social Protection, Otiko Afisa Djaba, of ‘hijacking’ the allocation exercise without giving them a stake in the process.

But the acting Northern Regional Communication Director of the NPP, Issahaku Latif, said the party was not in support of the youth’s action.

According to him, it was surprising that the youth had taken the law into their own hands when there was a laid down procedure to have their views aired.

He said the youth should have made their concerns known to the party, and not resort to locking up the offices as they did.

Latif, however noted that, his outfit will take up the matter and find an amicable way of addressing it.

“The party is always open and the directorate is open for you to come and raise those particular concerns, to say that you are not very happy….the party will take the matter up and then will go to various government appointees and we will raise this particular concern,” he said.

While urging the youth to exercise restraint, he called on them to submit themselves to the laid down party procedures by registering their complaints properly.

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By: Farida Yusif/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post N/Region: NPP chides youth group over school feeding protest appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

In some cases, some were served without fish or any protein, Citi News gathered.

[contextly_sidebar id=”FCHaWYshtv8mvquQm1nnPTs2Ky8MyDHc”]At the Kwabenya Senior High School in the Greater Accra Region for instance, where Citi News’ Caleb Kudah visited on Monday with Parliament’s select committee on Education, the students had been served Waakye without even shito.

Their food was also without gari or spaghetti as some of them expected.

One of the students said, “The government is paying for the waakye. [But] there is no shito, no meat, no macaroni, not even salad, no egg.”

A member of the committee and Member of Parliament for Ketu South, Bernard Ahiafor, after a working visit to the school to assess the implementation of the Free SHS program said, “We realized that the waakye that they were being served it with has no complement in terms of egg or fish, so that goes a long way to state categorically from what I’ve seen that there is a problem with the quality of food.”

School feeding in selected public basic schools

Meanwhile, the National School Feeding Program has insisted it provides the best meals to students.

The Public Relations Officer of the school feeding secretariat, Siba Alfa told Citi News that his outfit constantly monitors the caterers to ensure that the quality of the food served to the pupils at the basic level is not compromised.

Over one million school children currently under the program, are entitled to one hot meal per day.

Free SHS: La Presby students study on cement blocks

This comes barely few days after Citi News reported that some students of the La Presby Senior High School, are studying on cement blocks due to lack of desks, under the Free SHS program.

Click on audio to listen to a report by Citi News’ Caleb Kudah highlighting these challenges.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Free SHS: Kwabenya SHS students eat waakye without shito, fish appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Some of the caterers said they have not been paid for more than 8 months.

[contextly_sidebar id=”726UVhWlBEq3ua7iq2k2GhkxGtd03LDa”]According to the Public Relations Officer of the School Feeding program, Maame Yaa Duoduo Appiah, government’s failure to pay them has forced some of them to cease operation since they cannot continue to fund the program with their monies.

“This morning, we are here to speak to the minister to talk about the monies owed us.  They owe us from June 2016 to May this year. In February, when we met the minister, she assured us of paying the old debt which is for 100 days, but unfortunately, she paid us for only 25 days leaving us with about 75 days of the old debt. So from July to December, they owe us for 75 days and this administration from January to May, they owe in for 71 days,” she said.

She added that their creditors had refused to lend them money due to their indebtedness.

“It is affecting us because we are not getting money to buy the items to cook for the children. We are not getting funds from anywhere, the banks have refused to lend us money since our monies do not go through them, we receive payments through Mobile Money. We cannot go back to our creditors,” she added.

She said a recent statement sighted by the group from the ministry indicated that funds had been released to pay them their arrears but they are yet to receive the money after more than a week of issuance of the letter.

Meanwhile, the National School Feeding Secretariat says it will pay the debt it owes school feeding caterers by the end of May.

The coordinator of the program, Patrick Acheampong while addressing the caterers at the ministry said his outfit will ensure outstanding payments for the 75 days ending December 2016 will be paid by the end of the month.

“We owe them 140 days. 75 days is what has matured for payment. We have made a lot of efforts to get the monies paid but because of the change in government, we have to go through some processes. We still need to have some administrative processes cleared”

“Based on how far we have come, we believe that hopefully, by the end of this month, we would possibly make the payment,” he added.

He further called for calm among the caterers as the ministry work towards making the payment.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post School feeding caterers besiege Gender ministry over arrears appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

There was drama and confusion on Monday [March 27, 2017] when teachers and pupils of the school had to run for their lives when angry and heavily built young men stormed the school premises to attack caterers of the School Feeding Programme.

The young men did not only succeed in overturning tables and pouring the prepared food to the ground, they also destroyed cooking utensils belonging to the caterers.

According to a teacher of the school who spoke on condition of anonymity, the over 300 pupils were getting ready to be served with Beans and Gari when the unfortunate incident happened.

He recounted that the situation left the pupils helpless and the caterers with no option than to take cover from the marauding young men.

He disclosed the young men, more than 10 in number, came on motorbikes at about 10:30 am when the food was ready to be served.

He noted that without provocation, they pushed the food to the ground, doused the fire with water and warned the caterers not to prepare food for the pupils saying that their failure to comply with the warning will attract more attacks.

It is not clear what engineered the attack but reports say the young men claimed that their government [NPP] is in power and so the contract with the old caterers should be abrogated.

A close source at the District Education Directorate confirmed the incident to Citi News and appealed to the security agencies and authorities to investigate the matter and bring the culprits to book.

Attempts to reach the spokesperson of the group, only identified as ‘Blackman’ has proved futile  as all calls to his phone were unanswered in spite of an earlier agreement to grant an interview.

The development according to Citi News checks has been reported to the District Police command but no arrest has so far been made.

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By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Invisible Forces attack school feeding caterers in Atebubu appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, pupils in schools in his constituency have for the past few months been denied meals following clashes between National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) fanatics over the management of the program in the constituency.

[contextly_sidebar id=”gNvhcXaesbbk2eZ85OBI6pWKZUufwyqU”]Speaking on the floor of parliament on Friday, March 17, Bawah Braimah said, stakeholders including Parliament must help resolve the issue.

“This unfortunate development if not addressed immediately, may affect the purpose of the program and will affect the delivery of education to the people of Ejura Sekyeredumase. It is important that going forward all stakeholders work together to free the program from politicization which has the potential of undermining the effective delivery of this laudable program.”

He added that, the development has resulted in low attendance in public schools in the constituency, and expressed fear that if the situation is left unattended to, it will affect the standard of education in the constituency.

“Mr speaker, since the 12^th of January to date, the 14,000 school pupils have not been fed resulting in low attendance in public schools. In this era where successive governments are putting in place pragmatic intervention to promote educational development, any effort aimed at draining such interventions like the school feeding should be resisted. I’ll like to crave the indulgence of this House and appeal to Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection and the Minster of Education to intervene to ensure that the children who are the future of this nation are protected to ensure that their education is not compromised. The earlier the food program is resumed the better for education delivery in the constituency,” he said.

The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has referred the matter to the joint parliamentary committee on Education and Gender for discussion and necessary actions to address the problem.

The school feeding program is a policy intervention introduced by the NPP government led by former President Kufuor several years ago to increase access to education.

The policy sought to ensure that school pupils were provided with lunch, funded by government, as a way of encouraging them to be in school.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @jnyabor

The post NPP-NDC clash denies 14,000 pupils school feeding meals appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The restructuring directly affects 7,600 jobs worldwide, with another 4,000 potentially affected as part of changes to its regional organisation.

However a company spokesman said: “Removing jobs in one area does not necessarily have to mean job cuts.”

Some staff may be redeployed and Siemens is holding talks on the plans with its works council.

The company is reorganising itself into nine divisions from its current 16. It intends to cut annual group costs by 1bn euros ($1.4bn) from 2016.

The reorganisation follows a previous one that affected 15,000 posts. In a news conference on Friday, a Siemens spokesman said that the number of job losses from that revamp was 4,000.

Siemens employs 360,000 staff worldwide, with about a third of these in Germany.

Alstom battle

Earlier this month, Siemens said in its latest company report that it expected its markets “to remain challenging in fiscal 2014” with a recovery not expected until later in the year.

Siemens is keen to buy part of France’s Alstom.

To do that, it will have to come up with a more attractive bid than US firm General Electric (GE), which is pushing hard to do a deal with the French industrial firm.

To sweeten its approach, GE recently promised to create 1,000 jobs in France.

Source: BBC

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