LEAP beneficiaries to receive GH¢11 million
A total of 146,074 households are to benefit from GH¢11million to be disbursed under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.
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The disbursement will be the 40th cycle of the LEAP payments covering the November and December 2015 benefits.
Payments to the beneficiaries, who are located in 185 districts across the country, will commence on Monday, January 25 and end on January 29, 2016.
The recipients will include the beneficiaries of the LEAP 1000 project, an initiative targeted at extremely poor pregnant women and children aged less than one year.
Briefing the media on the 40th cycle LEAP payments, the LEAP Programme Manager, Mr Dzigbordi Agbekpornu, said there had been a significant increase in the number of beneficiary households in the 40th cycle payment.
From 71, 936 beneficiary households in January 2013, the number has increased from 144,980 beneficiary households in the 39th cycle payment to 146,074 in the 40th cycle payment.
“By this number, we are certainly on track towards achieving the 250,000 beneficiary households by December 2016, as announced by the Minister of Finance in the 2016 budget to Parliament last year,” Mr Agbekpornu said.
LEAP programme
LEAP is a social intervention programme that provides bi-monthly cash transfers to targeted households living below the poverty line. Eligible beneficiaries include elderly people above 65 who are poor; the disabled who are unable to work and carers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs).
Since the inception of the programme in 2008, the beneficiary households have increased from 1,645 to 146,074 currently.
Beneficiaries receive their payment either manually or electronically. The manual payments are made by Ghana Post Company Limited, whereas the e-payments are done by MTN mobile money, Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) and AYA Technologies.
The breakdown of the payments are; one-member household receives GH¢48; a household with two eligible members receives GH¢60,.while households with three eligible beneficiaries get GH¢72. Those with four eligible beneficiaries or more receive GH¢90.00.
A research conducted by the North Carolina University of the USA and Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana in 2012, indicated that the LEAP programme had improved the living conditions of the beneficiary households.
LEAP 1000 project
Touching on the LEAP 1000 project, Mr Agbekpornu said that 6,124 beneficiaries from 10 districts in the northern regions were benefiting from the programme.
He also announced that the ministry had contracted the GhIPSS to roll out the e-payment mechanism to all LEAP beneficiaries, adding that in the 40th cycle disbursement, 15 districts would be paid through the e-payment.
Mr Agbekpornu added that the government was committed to putting in place measures to make life comfortable for the vulnerable.