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Sagnarigu, Ghana – Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister, Otiko Afisah Djaba, has given yet another indication that poverty is still high in the three regions of the North, quoting figures from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) to buttress her point.
According to Madam Otiko Djaba, a chunk of the cash grant given to LEAP the beneficiaries went to three regions and implored Metropolitan, Municipal and District Executives to see LEAP as an important tool that moved Ghana beyond aid.
“Currently, LEAP has covered all 254 MMDAs nationwide with 213, 044 beneficiary households which translate into about 937, 907 individuals. You t the 937904 individual LEAP housed members, women constuste, women while 56percent while men Constitute 44percent.
“Out of the 213, 044 households, the Upper West has 38,133 households, Upper East 31,061 households and Northern Region has 43,173 households. When you put them all together, it is 112, 367 households. That means half of the LEAP beneficiaries are in the Northern Region, Upper West and Upper East” Madam Otiko Afisah Djaba said at a sensitisation workshop for MMDCEs and their Coordinating Directors in Sagnarigu in the Northern Region
LEAP is a cash transfer programme for the poorest households in Ghana. It seeks to assist the poorest families with basic needs including food, improved health and education status of children and poverty eradication among families.
Persons qualified to benefit from LEAP are orphans and vulnerable children; persons with severe disability; elderly 65 years and beyond; extremely poor pregnant women and infants.
The Gender Minister also implored on the MMDCEs to partner with her Ministry and the Ghana Health Service to extend healthcare to all LEAP beneficiaries in their respective districts.
She suggested screening of beneficiaries who might have conditions such as diabetes, breast cancer, sight problems and blood pressure as well as healthy living, basic geriatric care and general counseling services.
LEAP Programme Manager, Seth Kwakye Amofa, said government spends Ghc17 million on the LEAP cash grant disbursement nationwide to over 200, 000 beneficiaries, adding that “the figure is being scaled up to 456,000 by the end of 2018”.
He mentioned increase in enrolment and retention, free NHIS registration of over 100,000 households and the ability by individuals to use cash grants to engage in trading and farming activities as some of the impact of the LEAP Programme in recent years.
The workshop was aimed at sensitising the MMDCEs and their Coordinating Directors on the LEAP Programme and new policy dimensions regards to its implementation as well as seeks the support of the MMDCEs to fight the issue of human trafficking and domestic violence.
By Savannahnewsonline.com
