FREETOWN – With the new academic year set to begin in September, several principals of government boarding schools are warning they may be unable to reopen due to uncertainty over diet supplies.
Contractors responsible for providing food to boarding schools say they have not been paid by the Ministry of Finance since January 2024, leaving them unable to restock for the new term. Some suppliers, burdened by bank loans taken to finance their contracts, have warned they will halt deliveries in September if backlog payments are not made.
The crisis extends to the national school feeding programme, which provides meals for primary schools nationwide. According to education officials, suppliers have gone unpaid for eleven months, putting feeding arrangements for thousands of pupils at risk.
“All the suppliers are Sierra Leoneans. Many used their properties as collateral to secure loans. Now, they risk losing them because the government owes them huge sums,” a senior Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education official told this newspaper.
The situation has drawn the attention of senior officials from the IMF and World Food Programme in Freetown, who have urged the Ministry of Finance to prioritise payments to protect the school feeding programme.
A Ministry of Finance spokesperson acknowledged on Monday that the programme “remains a priority for the government” but declined to provide further details.
With only weeks before schools reopen, uncertainty over payments threatens to disrupt learning and nutrition for thousands of boarding and primary school pupils.
By Joe Turay
