We don’t owe suppliers - NAFCO boss

The National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) says it does not owe any of its licensed suppliers contracted to supply food items to senior high schools under the Free SHS programme.

The company said it had so far paid GH¢68 million to the first batch of suppliers whose documents had been audited and approved for payment.

The Chief Executive Officer of NAFCO, Alhaji Hannan Abdul-Wahab, who said this at a press conference in Accra yesterday, explained that those who had not yet received payment were those whose documents were still going through verification with the Ministry of Education and would be paid immediately auditing was concluded.

Terms of payment

Alhaji Abdul-Wahab was speaking to claims that some heads of senior high schools had threatened to close down the schools due to the absence of food and the reasons being that licensed suppliers claimed they had not been paid by NAFCO.

"It must be emphasised that in terms of payment, one of the conditions spelt out in the license issued to our suppliers states clearly that payment for work done is within 60 days," he explained, adding that "by the calculations, some are all still within the stipulated time-frame of 60 days."

“As we speak, I am not aware of any official complaint of non-payment by any supplier,” Alhaji Abdul-Wahab stressed.

Obligations of suppliers

He explained that under the letter of engagement with the licensed suppliers, they were expected to supply the first batch of the food items to their respective schools assigned to within five working days after reopening of school for the first semester of the 2019/2020 academic year and “failure to do so will result in the abrogation of the supplier’s license.”

Touching on the terms of payment, Alhaji Abdul-Wahab said NAFCO was mandated to pay the suppliers for the food items supplied after receipt of all invoices of items supplied to the assigned school after authentication by the auditors.

“The suppliers, under the agreement, are to ensure that the school’s store receipt voucher (SRV) is duly signed by three officers of the school, failure of which can result in non-payment for delivery made,” he explained.

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Success of Free SHS

Alhaji Abdul-Wahab acknowledged that the contribution of NAFCO’s impact on the success of the Free SHS programme could not be over-emphasised.

“We buy from farmers into our warehouses for onward supply to the schools. Through that, we have offered significant boost to our farmers under the government’s Planting for Food and Jobs programme.

“We have equally offered enhancement to our food processors such as those engaged in palm oil, gari, tom brown, flour and of course, cocoa powder,” he added.

Alhaji Abdul-Wahab disclosed that last year, a total of GH¢180 million was spent on foodstuff for schools adding that this year’s expenditure would be higher.

He said this 2019/2020 academic year, NAFCO was projecting an extra food budget of GH¢50 million because “in the 2018/2019 academic year, we were dealing with only SHS One and Two but we are talking of a full stream from Form One to Three.”