Committee exonerates School Feeding Coordinator

The committee that was set up to investigate the suspended National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), Dr Kwame Adu-Nsiah, over allegations of “fictitious deals" in the payment of caterers of the programme has exonerated him from any wrongdoing.

A copy of the committee’s report sighted by the Daily Graphic recommended that he be reinstated and his entitlements restored to him.

The 13-page report described his interdiction as “unfortunate and unfair”, stressing that “no such evidence of mismanagement, impropriety or misconduct was established by our inquiry against the interdicted National Coordinator, Dr Kwame Adu-Nsiah”.

Suspension

Dr Adu-Nsiah was suspended over allegations of involvement in alleged "fictitious deals" in the payment of caterers of the programme.

He was asked to step aside on December 13, 2018 after a National Security investigation reportedly implicated him in what was described as “fraudulent deals” in the running of the feeding programme.

A letter addressed to the then coordinator, signed by the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection (MGCSP), Mrs Cynthia Morrison, and dated December 13, 2018 accused him of inflating figures on schools under the programme.

He was subsequently directed to hand over to his deputy by the close of Friday, December 14, 2018.

Following his suspension, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, set up a three-member team, under the chairmanship of the Senior Minister, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, to investigate the matter.

Findings

After almost a year of investigations, the committee concluded that although it had established acts of duplication, wrongful payments and mismanagement of the programme, especially in the Sekyere East District in the Ashanti Region, those acts could not be blamed on Dr Adu-Nsiah.

“The committee sat 10 times and interviewed all key personnel of the GSFP. The minister was unable to provide any tangible evidence to substantiate the allegations of widespread malpractices in the GSFP, apart from the specific case of Sekyere East Constituency,” the report said.

According to the report, it discovered that the minister and Dr Adu-Nsiah had “poor working relations” that might have been caused by “two issues that arose between the two personalities before the minister’s appointment and assumption of office”.

It said those two issues led to “mistrust and lack of confidence on the part of the minister” for Dr Adu-Nsiah.

The committee said it had also found that Dr Adu-Nsiah had “good rapport with the senior staff of the GSFP Secretariat”, who were contacted during the investigations.

Other recommendations

The report recommended that the bad blood between Dr Adu-Nsiah and the minister that led to the current situation needed to be addressed to ensure the smooth running of the GSFP.

In view of that, it said, one of the options that could be explored to address that challenge was “taking measures to re-integrate Dr  Adu-Nsiah into the Trust Hospital, from where he was seconded to the GSFP”.

It also recommended that he could be reassigned to another institution within the public sector.

Alternatively, the committee recommended that Dr Adu-Nsiah be paid a three-month salary in lieu of notice of the termination of his appointment as the National Coordinator of the GSFP, “in accordance with public sector conditions of employment and notice of termination”.

Gender Minister’s response

When the Daily Graphic contacted the MGCSP for a response on the issue, Mrs Morrison confirmed the findings of the committee.

“The report is what it is. I was part of the committee and so I cannot speak otherwise about the recommendations,” she said.

She said Dr Adu-Nsiah had been reinstated at the Trust Hospital, which was one of the alternatives proposed by the committee.

“He used to work at the Trust Hospital and he has been sent back there because the President has reassigned someone to the GSFP,” she said.

Background

The 2018 Auditor-General’s Report revealed several financial irregularities that had led to huge financial losses to the state in the running of the GSFP, with 81 metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and the management of the programme blamed for the mismanagement.

Bloated enrolment figures, duplication of schools, payment of grants to non-existent caterers in the 2017-2018 academic year, as well as under-declaration of revenue from the sale of application forms, according to the report, accounted for the huge losses running into millions of cedis.

 The report accused the 81 MMDAs of declaring only GH¢194,383.00 from an amount of GH¢1.09 million purportedly realised from the sale of 21,880 application forms sold to caterers who applied for contracts.

As much as GH¢899,617 from the sale of application forms is unaccounted for and has been outstanding since 2017.