Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education, and Hanan Abdul-Wahab, the CEO of the National Buffer Stock Company, appear to be fighting regarding whether or not the Akufo-Addo administration owes food suppliers any money.
Traders who claim they are owed enormous amounts of money have been picketing at the National Buffer Stock Company’s offices over the past few weeks.
Aside from the picketing, however, official documents have been made public and interviews with government officials regarding the substantial debt, which the Ministry of Education estimates to be in the hundreds of millions of Ghana Cedis but claims to cover years.
The National Buffer Stock’s CEO, meanwhile, disputes claims that they owes suppliers money that is more than two years late.
His denial follows a meeting with the minister of education, Hon. Adu Adutwum, to discuss the National Food Buffer Stock Company’s debt to the National Food Suppliers Association’s members, which was disclosed in a statement by the leadership of the National Food Suppliers Association.
The statement signed by Kwaku Amedume and dated July 11, 2023 said that the Education Minister, had disclosed releasing “a total amount of Four Hundred and Eighteen Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢418,000,000,000) to the National Food Buffer Stock Company between the periods of 2021, 2022, and 2023, and One Hundred Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢100, 000,000), Two Hundred and Eighty three Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢283,000,000,000) and Thirty Five Million Ghana Cedis (GH¢35,000,000,000) respectively.
The statement said that “it is worthy to note that, even though the Minister asserts to have released an amount of GH¢283,000,000,000, in 20220to the Buffer Stock Company for payment of arrears in 2022, members of the National Food Suppliers Company are yet to receive a penny of the said amount.
“The Hon. Minister intimated to the executives of the Ghana Food Suppliers Association that in January 2023, the amount paid (GH¢35, 000,000,000) was the remaining balance of the 2022 arrears owed to the National Food Suppliers Association.
“The Minister pledged that the Ministry of Finance is in the process of releasing part of the arrears this week, and that government is not in the position to pay our arrears in full. We wish to state that we are not prepared to accept part payment of the 2022 arrears, given the fact that individual members have accumulated interests on their loans contracted from their respective banks.”
However just after the statement, CEO of the Ghana Buffer Stock, in an interview with Happy Morning Show said “I want to put this on record that we don’t owe any supplier over two years arrears. We don’t have an invoice that has exceeded two years with us as we speak, and that is a fact. If we did we would have shut down schools by now.”
