Free hot chocolate drinks for one million SHS students

 

Addressing the launch at the Accra Girls Senior High School Friday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yofi Grant said the move was part of government's effort to consolidate the success of its flagship Free Senior High School (SHS) programme.

 

According to him, the NPP government is committed to exploring such viable partnerships with the private sector which make use of local raw materials such as cocoa.

 

He said the government was committed to ensuring that the minimum educational level of all Ghanaian children would be the SHS level.

 

 

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the National Food Buffer Stock Company, Hanan Abdul-Wahab told Graphic Online that his outfit has contracted Benjamin's Hot Chocolate as part of a pilot project which will see an even-distribution of one million cups of the Benjamin's Hot Chocolate product across SHS schools in the country.

 

"It is a pilot project, we are supposed to do an even distribution of this product across the country so that every school will feel the taste of the product so that we can receive results of the acceptability of the product," Mr Abdul-Wahab said.

 

"Our financial arrangement is that as when he supplies them and presents an invoice to the National Food Buffer Stock Company then he gets paid.

He added that the NFBSC was currently reviewing the price per cup of the initiative with the outcome expected next week.

 

 

"Well, we are in the process of price review... We have agreed on a certain price that was somewhere year but now a committee is sitting on the review of the cup so by the close of next week we will get to find out the price. It will be very economical and will be between GHC 1 and GHC 1.60 for a meal".

 

The CEO of Benjamin's Hot Chocolate Limited, Benjamin Mougarbel said the company's factory is sighted at Tema and made from cocoa beans produced in Ghana.

 

Mr Mougarbel explained that the cocoa drink comes in a styrofoam cup already filled with the cocoa mixture and all that was required to make the drink was water with deliveries expected to begin in the current school term..

 

 

He added that the version of the product which will be disbursed to schools are currently embossed with a mark indicating that it is not for sale.

 

There was later a free sampling of the drinks by the Accra Girls students as well as the dignitaries including Ghanaian actor John Dumelo and former world boxing champion Joseph Agbeko.