National Food Suppliers Association has revealed that the government has not yet paid its members for the food they provided to senior high schools across the nation, which amounts to just around GH300 million.

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On Friday, August 18, irate association members surrounded the National Food Buffer Stock Company's (NAFCo) offices and demanded payment of the 200 million Ghanaian cedis in arrears owed to the suppliers for the year 2022.

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After months of pleading with the government to pay their arrears so they could continue their businesses, the suppliers started days of picketing at the Buffer Stock offices in July.

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They then expressed dissatisfaction when they only received a portion of the money due to them.

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The besieging of NAFCo's facilities, according to Kwaku Amedume, a spokesperson for the food suppliers group, was done to collect debts that have been owing for two years but had depreciated in value.

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“When we picketed the last time, the government was able to raise GH¢100 million to be disbursed to members with the promise that they were going to get us the balance on August 17. So what happened was that some of our members approached the buffer stock to enquire about how far they were preparing to settle us. We went into a meeting with them [on August 18] and the information was that the Ministry of Education has released GH¢80 million to be disbursed to the suppliers and that will bring up the total payment for 2022 to GH¢180 million representing about 85 percent of the total arrears owed suppliers," Mr. Amedume explained.

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But unfortunately, Mr Amedume is arguing that government has still failed to clear arears amounting to GH₵‎300million

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“We still have 2023 arrears that range a little around 300 million Ghanaian cedis that they have promised to do something about it in two weeks’ time, and so we actually went to the Buffer Stock to find out when we were going to be paid.”

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