• Nana Oye Lithur (5th left), handing over some of the relief items to one of the victims at Aboabo, a Muslim community in Kumasi. Those with her include, Mr Ahmed Sheik Abdirahman Omar (3rd left), Country Director, DirectAid Ghana.

Govt sets up GH¢3.9m emergency LEAP fund for flood victims

Emmanuel Baah Jul - 09 - 2015 , 00:57

The government has set up a GH¢3.9 million emergency Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) fund to cater for victims of recent floods in the country.

Under the three-month programme, 13,000 households affected by the floods will be given GH¢100 each per month.

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, who announced this during a two-day working visit to the Ashanti Region, said already collection of data had almost been completed for subsequent disbursement of funds to the beneficiary households.

The minister was in Kumasi with the team from Kuwait-based Direct Aid Ghana, an international non-governmental organisation.
As part of the visit, each of the 250 recent flood victims at Aboabo were given mattresses, a bag of rice, cans of tomato paste, cooking oil and schoolbags.

Fighting extreme poverty

According to the minister, the ministry was using the LEAP to lead the fight against extreme poverty.

That, she said, had resulted in Ghana becoming the first African country to attain the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 1, by halving extreme poverty.

Nana Oye Lithur said 8,628 households in the Ashanti Region were on the LEAP programme, and that an amount of GH¢522,462 had been paid to those households.

The Country Director of DirectAid Ghana, Mr Ahmed Sheik Abdirahman Omar, said his outfit was disturbed by the unfortunate incident of flood resulting in the death of some Ghanaians.

That, she said, motivated the NGO to mobilise and offer some support as their widow’s mite to bring relief to the people.

President commended

The Municipal Chief Executive, Alhaji Nurudeen Hamdan, used the opportunity to commend President John Dramani Mahama for his swift intervention in bringing help to the residents.

He explained that following the President’s intervention, engineers from the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing moved to work on the Aboabo drainage.

The Ashanti Regional Head of Zongo communities, Alhaji Umar Faruuk, on behalf of the affected Zongo societies, thanked the donors for their timely assistance.