Help Prpmote LEAP Programme (page 14)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah and Edward Turkson

THE Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, Nana Akomeah, has stated that the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme which is meant to alleviate the suffering of the poor should be supported instead of the political meanings being read into it.
He said
under the programme, the government would spend less than one per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to achieve payouts to more than 160 extremely poor Ghanaian households as a major complementary measure to relieve “fellow citizens who at the moment find themselves in the category of extremely poor, vulnerable and excluded”.
“We are talking about households who have HIV sufferers who have difficulty in raising the highly subsidised GH¢5 cost of monthly treatment. We are talking about households that benefit from improved seeds for planting but end up using some of the seeds for food,” he stressed.
At his turn at the Meet-the-Press series organised by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation in Accra yesterday, Nana Ankomea said “the objection that a welfare programme is dubious because it is an election year is a very unworthy objection”.
He said in as much as the programme was not mainly to achieve political points, the government would be appreciative “if the populace sees the programme as enhancing their welfare and well-being, then we should expect reasonable total support from all and sundry”.
Nana Akomeah stated that the programme was not meant to benefit members of one political party, adding that the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries had been developed by a credible team of local and international experts.
The LEAP programmes is a component of the National Social Protection Strategy which aims at investing in people through social assistance schemes.
Nana Akomea said the core feature of the LEAP was direct cash transfer to categories of poor people, adding that the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 5) which was conducted in 2005 and 2006 indicated that 41 per cent of Ghanaians were poor and out of that figure, 18. 2 per cent were considered extremely poor.
He described the extremely poor which the LEAP would take care of as those whose income fell below US$1.00 and were unable to cater for their basic human needs including their food requirements and also suffered from poverty across generations.
“The primary target of LEAP is this 18.2 per cent of the people identified by the GLSS as falling into the category of extreme poor,” the minister stated.
He noted that the amount to be disbursed per month ranged from GH¢8 to GH¢15 depending on the extent of poverty and whether the household had an orphan, a severely disabled person, and persons aged more than 65, adding that the programme would be implemented nationwide from 2008 to 2012.
He said the total cost of the programme for the five-year period was estimated at GH¢26 million, amounting to less than one per cent of GDP.
Nana Akomea dismissed the notion that the programme was being implemented this year to achieve political points and pointed out that the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II) recognised issues of the poor before this year and, therefore, gave his ministry the mandate to develop and implement the programme which it worked on between 2004 and 2007.
On delayed salaries of employees of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Nana Akomea said the problem stemmed from the fact that his outfit received its allocation for salaries on a three-month basis from some state institutions, who also received those funds on a three-month basis.
The National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) receives financial assistance from the National Health Insurance Scheme, GETFund, District Assembly Common Fund and the HIPC fund.
He announced that personnel at his ministry were preparing cheques for the payment of the affected employees some of whom had not been paid for more than three months.
The National Co-ordinator of the National Social Protection Strategy, Mrs Angela Asante Asare, said although the programme could not solve all the problems facing the poor in Ghana, it could be used to alleviate their suffering.
For her part, a lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, who is the leader of the design team currently working on the LEAP programme, Ms Ellen Botei-Doku Aryeetey, said if the country was able to register the extremely poor out of the LEAP programme, that register could be used to identify other needed assistance.
The Chairperson for the programme who is also the Minister for Information and National Orientation, Mrs Oboshie Sai Cofie, advised journalists to help explain the concept to the people.