Government to expand LEAP to cover more households
The government is to expand the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme to cover 250,000 households this year. This is in line with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social
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Protection's goal to continue to ensure the extension of social protection care to vulnerable people in the society.
As of November 2015, LEAP covered 144,980 beneficiary households in 185 districts, including women, children, the aged and persons with disability.
Operations of Gender Ministry
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, disclosed this at a meeting with the media in Accra, during which she gave an overview of the operations of her ministry and enumerated the ministry's projections for this year.
She also said Cabinet had given approval for LEAP to run as a full programme, adding that electronic payment of LEAP grants through the use of the e-zwich system would start this month, to help ensure monitoring and efficiency.
She indicated that Ghana Post would, however, continue the payment of LEAP grants in areas where there was no Internet connectivity.
According to the minister, Emergency LEAP grants were paid to people who were affected by the June 3, 2015 floods, with each beneficiary receiving GH¢100 for three months.
She also indicated that the ministry was conducting an assessment of the Paebo explosion that left one person dead and injured 29.
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Social unit
Nana Oye said to reflect the welfare and service roles played by the Department of Social Welfare, in line with the restructuring of the ministry, that office was now the Department of Social Development, and indicated that the government would establish a unit under the department to effectively handle cases of child maintenance.
According to the minister, the unit would be assigned the role of collecting maintenance fees from parents who neglected the upkeep of their children and stressed that a number of parents had neglected their parental responsibility - an issue which led to streetism and formed a major proportion of cases the department dealt with.
She also said modalities for the operation of the unit would emanate from the ministry and that the ministry would work alongside the legal system.
She warned that those who appeared before the unit and refused to pay the maintenance fees demanded from them would be referred to the Family Tribunals.
Challenges
She mentioned resources as one major challenge confronting the ministry and said the ministry received only 13 per cent of its GH¢ 38 million budget for 2015.
She pointed out that through hard work and with the support of national and multinational partners, a number of the ministry’s policies had been approved by Cabinet and launched.
She mentioned the Child and Family Welfare and the National Gender policies, indicating that the National Social Protection Policy had also been approved and would soon be launched, while Cabinet had also approved the School Feeding Policy and the Justice for Children Policy.
She said the ministry took over the ministerial responsibility of the National School Feeding Programme last year and was doing a complete overhaul of the programme, leading to the conduct of financial and performance audit and the institution of electronic payment for operators of the scheme to enhance efficiency and address gaps in terms of monitoring and evaluation.
Outlook for 2016
Nana Oye indicated that a nutrition conference would be convened with stakeholders to discuss the efficient use of local foods in the various communities for the benefit of the children.
She also said the ministry would extend medical and financial support to women and girls suffering from obstetric fistula and implement programmes under the Economic Community for West African
States' (ECOWAS’) Gender Development Centre to support young girls accessing specialised technical and professional education through the award of scholarships of excellence.