Communities briefed on LEAP
Sixty thousand more households will be added to the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme by September 2015, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, has stated.
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She made this known when she paid a working visit to the Nima and Sabon Zongo communities in Accra to interact with the people and explain the concept of the LEAP programme to them on Monday.
LEAP programme
The programme is meant to give a short-term plan for reducing poverty and encourage long-term human capital development.
The trial phase of the programme started in March 2008 and has gradually expanded since then.
According to Nana Oye, about 90,000 households were currently benefiting from LEAP and the addition of more households was meant to provide some form of financial and other forms of support to the extremely poor households in the country under the social intervention programme.
She said for the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Sabon Zongo, Nima, Mamprobi, La Dadekotopon, Ledzorkuku, Ashaiman, and Tema Newtown would be added to the programme indicating that 10,000 were targeted in the metropolis.
Nana Oye pointed out that there were about 30 districts that were not on the LEAP programme, but would be migrated onto it soon.
She said they were in talks with the Ministry of Finance to increase the money given to the LEAP beneficiaries from GH¢24 a month to GH¢44.
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“The government is committed to the LEAP programme. This is the flagship of our social protection programme as a government. We have budget allocation as well as financial and human resource for this programme,” she said.
Courtesy call
Before interacting with the people of the community, Nana Oye paid a courtesy call on the Ayawaso Council of Zongo Chiefs and the chiefs of the Sabon Zongo communities.
She also presented some assorted items to children in the Nima community and wished the people well in their period of fast.