The Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak is questioning the whereabouts of the government’s promise to provide one chocolate a day to every child who is enrolled in school at the basic level.
In 2017, the President is reported to have announced that a bar of chocolate would be provided for free to every school going child. The president at the time said the decision is tied with the government’s plans of boosting the local consumption of cocoa products. Government agencies were to ensure the sustained provision of cocoa beverages and chocolates to school children from primary school to secondary level.
The Builsa South Legislator said the government as part of the school feeding programme promised to give one egg each to every school going child and a bar of chocolate every day.
Dr. Clement Apaak said the government must come back to parliament and withdraw the statement or tell Ghanaians the earlier promise to provide these freebies was not tenable.
“ It was even a campaign message: one egg and a bar of chocolate. I don’t know of any child who has received a bar of chocolate a day- one child one chocolate, one chocolate one child and I don’t know of any child who has eaten an egg a day so I want to know”. He made the comments on 3FM’s Sunrise morning show on Monday.
Subsequently, the legislator has filed questions in parliament to compel the sector minister to answer those questions.
His comments follow the launch of an initiative to provide every teacher with one laptop. The initiative dubbed one teacher one laptop was launched last Thursday by Dr. Bawumia, the Vice President of Ghana and aimed at bridging the digital gap between the rural teachers and urban teachers.
Dr. Apaak says the Bawumia led initiative is an attempt by the NPP to plagiarize the manifesto ideas of the National Democratic Congress.
He believes just like the empty chocolate promises, nothing would come of this promise also.
Meanwhile, Dr Apaak has hinted of plans to get accountability with regards to the $100M that the government said it has spent to prepare schools for the reopening of schools in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic. These include the buying of sanitizers, Veronica buckets and facemasks.
By Richard Bright Addo|3FM|3news.com|Ghana