Adwoa Safo alleges corruption in school feeding programme, calls on Mahama to investigate

Former Minister for Gender, Children, and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo, has alleged that former President Akufo-Addo instructed her to audit the School Feeding Programme but later distanced himself after the findings exposed massive corruption.

Speaking on Movement Radio, Adwoa Safo revealed that Nana Akufo-Addo personally tasked her with auditing the programme immediately after her appointment as Minister, even before she was allocated funds to run the ministry.

“Former President Akufo-Addo asked me to audit the School Feeding Programme after my appointment as Gender Minister, even before I had funds to work. He wanted to understand how the funds were utilized,” she stated.

She explained that in the course of her investigations, she invited one of the key figures involved in the programme several times, but the person refused to show up. Instead, she later received a message questioning why she was trying to “destroy” her connection in government.

“I invited one of the women on multiple occasions, but she did not honor it. She later sent a communication to me asking why I was supposedly trying to destroy her connection in government, but I told her I was only doing my job,” Adwoa Safo recounted.

Despite the resistance, Madam Safo says she went ahead with the audit and submitted the report to Cabinet, where she discovered that most of the corruption was centered in the Central Region.

According to her, she forwarded the report to the Presidency, but following the public backlash over the revelations, Nana Akufo-Addo backed away from the audit.

“After the backlash, President Akufo-Addo said he was not the one who directed me to do the audit and that I should even shelve it. That is where my problems started,” she disclosed.

She further alleged that the same woman who had refused to honor her invitation later proposed that they collude to add ghost schools to inflate programme allocations for personal gain.

When asked if she had a personal issue with Akufo-Addo, Adwoa Safo denied it, saying:

“He is the one that appointed me. If there comes a time when he says he is no longer interested in it, there isn’t much that I can do.”

She has since called on President John Mahama to investigate the School Feeding Programme, insisting that without accountability, the corruption in the programme will persist.