Free senior high school food suppliers are saying that the government’s failure to settle about GH¢250 million owed them has left them struggling to repay bank loans used to finance food supplies to schools.
According to the Secretary of the Controlled Food Suppliers Association, Cornelius Koku Logo, suppliers also obtained food items from farmers on credit, worsening the financial pressure on them.
"These supplies were funded by bank loans in most of the cases and produce that were taken on credit from farmers aggregated. And from then till now we’ve not been able to pay for those loans and the things that we took money to procure for government," he said.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Wednesday, October 7, Mr Logo said the association had made several attempts to resolve the matter with government agencies without success.
He said the suppliers engaged the National Food Buffer Stock Company (NAFCO) and the Ghana Commodity Exchange (GCX) in April before writing to the Ministry of Education in July to seek the Minister’s intervention.
He hinted that repeated follow‑ups yielded no results, forcing the suppliers to approach the Ministry of Finance, where they also followed up on the outstanding payments.
The association has now given the government a two‑week ultimatum to begin negotiations and provide a clear timeline for settling the GH¢250 million debt, which relates to food supplied during the 2024/2025 academic year.
