AMA Boss: 'School Feeding Programme Was Being Run Illegally'

The Chief Executive Officer of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Dr. Alfred Vanderpuiye, is alleging criminality in the operations of the School Feeding Programme. According to the Accra Mayor, since the inception of the Programme by the previous administration, it has been illegally operated, directly from the Secretariat, instead of at the District level. �This irregularity was perpetuated and also overlooked due to bad governance and the parochial interest of some people at the secretariat. When we realized this anomaly, district committees were set up by the secretariat under the Chairmanship of the Major of Accra, to re-structure the whole programme,� he told Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM�s Kokrokoo. Commenting on the confusion that rocked the programme yesterday, the AMA mayor said, the decision to ask caterers to re-apply was borne out of the fact that two separate audit reports, one undertaken by the PricewaterhouseCoopers and the other by the Auditor General's Dept., revealed massive fraud and underhand dealings in the appointment of contracts, contrary to the guidelines of the programme. Dr. Vanderpuiye stressed that �the contracts sign with the caterers are not permanent, since at the end of every academic year, performances will be evaluated.� He cautioned against anyone attributing the directives to the caterers to re-apply and the roping in of new caterers as political victimization. �Any faction that does not understand the directive to re-apply or feels cheated, they should channel their grievances to the AMA or the school feeding secretariat�they didn�t come to apply with other party colours,� he stated.