school children in the Ashanti Region have boycotted the meals served by Feeding Programme.

Some school children in the Ashanti Region have refused to eat food served by caterers of the School Feeding Programme.

The pupils, who have been sharing their experiences with Nhyira News, claim they have endured persistent stomach upsets caused by poor quality of food served in the school.

The School Feeding Programme is in its eighth year of implementation, but it has in recent times been grappling with funding.

About 50 caterers are owed over 100 million Ghana cedis nationwide.

Deputy Local Government Minister, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, recently told Parliament a monitoring and evaluation team has been set up to ensure children eat high-quality food.

But less than two weeks after the minister's disclosure, pupils of Danyame Metropolitan Authority Basic School in Kumasi say meals served under the programme are bad.

An angry pupil in her response on what she made of the food served them by the Ghana School Feeding Programme said “sometimes they cook food as if we are animals”.

She continued; “the food that they cook is not sweet at all. Sometimes the salt is not in. Sometimes they cook gari with stew," she said.

A class six pupil said her parents have forced her to stop eating food served by the feeding programme.

Her harrowing account of how she develops stomach upset anytime she eats from the School Feeding Programme kitchen is a worrying one.

“My mother told me not to eat it again. I know it is not nice but some of my friends ate the food and they became sick”. She said.

School authorities say although service has been regular; the same cannot be said about quality.

Teachers who used to enjoy meals under the project have stopped eating in the school.

Children were being served jollof rice at the time Nhyira News visited the school. The pupils are forced to eat the light-yellowish grain without meat or egg.

That is the best the caterer could manage for the 256 pupils who are on a daily feeding fee of 50 pesewas.

Like several of her colleagues, the caterer has not been paid for her services for weeks.

A caterer in another school complained bitterly about soaring food prices and meager feeding fees.

She queried officials on their decision to peg feeding fee at 50 pesewas for each child while still expecting quality food.  

Headmaster of Danyame M/A Basic School, Eugene Asante Bekoe, said he understood his pupils who have boycotted the meals