Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) is urging government to introduce a digital monitoring system to enhance transparency and accountability within the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
The organisation highlights ongoing challenges, including enrolment padding, poor food quality, and wrongful payments, which persist due to weak oversight mechanisms.
Eduwatch advocates for the adoption of digital tools to track meal distribution, verify attendance, and ensure caterers comply with GSFP guidelines.
They also propose a participatory monitoring system that would involve District Assembly officials, school heads, civil society groups, and School Management Committees (SMCs) or Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) to improve oversight.
This recommendation comes after years of reported irregularities in GSFP operations.
In 2023, the Auditor-General uncovered wrongful payments exceeding GHC 2.5 million to non-contracted caterers or as excess funds that remain unrecovered.
Eduwatch also calls for several reforms, including decentralizing caterer procurement, recovering misused funds, and aligning programme coverage with poverty levels.
They urge the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection to collaborate with the Ministry of Local Government and the Audit Service to ensure proper implementation and monitoring.
GSFP has taken steps towards digitisation such as partnering with Virtual Solutions to streamline operations and receiving support from the World Food Programme (WFP) to implement digital tracking in pilot schools.
Eduwatch however believes that incorporating participatory monitoring will further strengthen the system and improve service delivery.
