LEAP to take off strong beneficiaries

The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is working to take off some of the Livelihood Empowerment Programme Against Poverty (LEAP) beneficiaries who are capable of working and set them up.

Therefore, the ministry said it would get the data of those individuals and support them to expand their business, while taking them off the programme to enable other potential beneficiaries to be rolled onto the programme.

According to the ministry, some of the beneficiaries had started some scale up businesses with the monies they were receiving from the LEAP programme and needed substantial amount to invest in their businesses.

Achieving the goal

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Mrs Cynthia Morrison, made this known when she presented laptops to some district social welfare officers at a ceremony in Accra last Friday.

The laptop computers will be distributed to 206 district social welfare officers across the country to enhance the implementation of the LEAP programme to help improve service delivery.

The minister said the aim of LEAP was to cushion beneficiaries to come out from poverty and that could be achieved through economic empowerment.

She explained that some of the beneficiaries and caretakers of the LEAP programme had made good use of the monies they received by venturing into soap making, dress making, beads making and other businesses, hence the need to help them to expand their businesses.

Therefore, as part of the exit plans, Mrs Morrison said some beneficiaries or their caregivers would be provided with capital as well as skills development to be economically independent instead of being dependent on the monthly benefit of LEAP.

“Some of the caretakers and beneficiaries are strong and can work and expand their businesses to even employ other people. Meanwhile, there are others who are also in dire need and should be on the programme”, she noted.

She, therefore, tasked the social welfare officers to get details of the people who were making good use of the “little monies” they were receiving so that they could be fully set up by the ministry.

Technological advancement

Touching on the laptop computers, Mrs Morrison said the gadgets had become necessary since the programme had adopted some information and technology innovation to support its development and expansion.

She explained that the programme now had a robust management information system for easy data management, storage retrieval and sharing of information.

Additionally, the minister said the payment of the LEAP cash grant to beneficiaries had all been automated to enable easy access and facilitation.

Again, she said the ministry through the LEAP Management Secretariat intended to pilot the electronic monitoring and evaluation reporting system to monitor the progress of the programme.

As a result, she indicated that the laptops would enhance the technological innovation and service delivery of the social welfare officers in implementing the programme.

Mrs Morrison further urged the social welfare officers to work diligently with love and passion as they had chosen a profession which required of them to be selfless and compassionate.

She further urged the officers to put the laptops to good use, adding that “the ministry appreciates your efforts and therefore will continue to support you as much as we can”.

“We need vehicles”

On behalf of the social welfare officers, Mr Exorgbe Divine thanked the ministry for the support.

He, however, urged the minister to help provide the social welfare officers with vehicles to facilitate their movement in their respective districts.

He said movement within the district was very difficult when they had to move from one place to another to follow up on issues related to social welfare.