The government has released an amount of GH₵67, 942, 652 to the 38 Colleges of Education (CoE) to cater for the arrears of their feeding grant.
The release followed threats by the National Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education Ghana (PRINCOF) to suspend feeding of students from May 8 due to the arrears.
A statement issued by PRINCOF in Accra yesterday said for a couple of months now, the colleges had been inundated with complaints from suppliers about their inability to pay for the food items supplied them.
It said in spite of the fact that prices of food items had gone up and a request from PRINCOF for an upward review of students feeding fees payable to principals, their request had not been approved yet.
As a result PRINCOF resolved that with effect from May 8, it would seize feeding the students.
The statement said “it has now come to a point where suppliers have backed their threats of not supplying any food items to colleges with concrete action by not supplying colleges until they have been paid monies owed them.”
However, addressing the media in Accra, the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw OseiAdutwum said the government had released the funds to cater for the concerns raised by PRINCOF.
He said the government was committed to education and would try to avert any issue that would disrupt educational calendar.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
