Mrs Cecilia Abena Dapaah, the Caretaker Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has inspected ongoing payment to LEAP beneficiaries, in the Ga North Municipality, to ensure the monies are appropriately dispensed to help them meet their basic needs.

The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme is a cash transfer for the extremely poor and vulnerable households in Ghana.

The programme aims to reduce poverty by smoothing consumption and promoting human capital development among extremely poor households.

It is expected that the LEAP cash grants and promotion of access to services and opportunities for these extremely poor households would help them meet their basic needs.

"The essence of the money is to be a cushion for these vulnerable households. They know how best to utilise the monies and they should pray for government to always secure the funds to come to their aid," she said.

The Minister expressed satisfaction at the disbursement, and said due to the digitisation of the process, it had been smooth and the recipients had shown a lot of satisfaction.

"The process is smooth and orderly. It is a very good policy to help the extremely poor and vulnerable households and government needs to be commended for continuing it, because but for some of these amounts people will go to bed hungry," she added.

Mr Colson Akambasiam, the Head of Communication, LEAP Management Secretariat, said the programme was one of the flagship social protection initiatives of government that provided a bi-monthly social cash transfer to 344,024 eligible extremely poor and vulnerable households nationwide.

The current disbursement is for the 73rd and 74th cycle payment and beneficiaries are receiving double their bimonthly grant.

"In Greater Accra 10,861 households are benefiting from the programme. For the
Ga North District, 112 households are benefiting from 10 communities. Then
in the Amamorley Community, 32 households are benefiting," he said.

Mr Akambasiam said the grant was given to households based on the number of vulnerable people there.

One person receives GHc64.00, two receive GHc 74.00, three GHc88.00, and four and above GHc106.00.

"LEAP beneficiaries are categorised into five groups - Orphans and vulnerable children; Persons with severe disability; The aged, who are 65 and above; Extremely poor pregnant women, and Infants under one year," he said.

Some of the beneficiaries expressed appreciation to government for the support over the past eight year, saying the monies had gone a long way to help them cater for their families.

The communities visited included Amamorley, Asofan, Fise, Amanfrom and Pokuase.