The government has increased the grants for beneficiaries of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) by 100 percent.
The increment means each beneficiary of the four categories will now receive double of the previous amount.
Prior to the increment, a single beneficiary in a household received GH¢64.00, two beneficiaries received GH¢76.00 whilst three beneficiaries took GH¢88.00 and four and above eligible household received an amount of GH¢106.00.
The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hajia Lariba Zuweira Abudu, last Friday, monitored the disbursement of the funds to about 278 beneficiaries at Gaagbini, a community in the West Mamprusi municipality in the North East Region.
Addressing Journalists after the monitoring exercise, Hajia Lariba who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Walewale said government was making payment for the 83rd and 84th cycles of the cash grants to the beneficiaries.
To this end, she disclosed one eligible member household is taking home GH¢256, two eligible member household take GH¢304, three-member would receive GH¢352 and four-member household will also receive GH¢424.
The Minister urged the beneficiaries, particularly the women who are into vegetable and other crop farming to invest their funds into such profitable economic activities in order to accrue profit to improve their living standards.
“I advised the women that if you were taking 64 cedis and now you’re taking 128 cedis, at least you can use half of the money to start something.
“Some of them are vegetable farmers in this community and I know they will use it to do their vegetable farming and they can sell and get more income,” she emphasised.
The main objective of introducing the LEAP programme under the erstwhile John Agyekum Kufuor administration in 2008 is to reduce poverty by increasing and smoothening consumption and promote access to services and opportunities among the extremely poor and vulnerable groups in society.
In line with this, Hajia Lariba Abudu therefore commended the government of Ghana and its development partners such as the World Bank for supporting the program.
“So, we want to thank the government for the increment and the World Bank for supporting this project, without them this project can’t thrive. I am happy that this will change lives, especially the women because they’re the majority” she stressed.
The Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister added what is heart-warming about the programme is the fact that people are not selected based on political party affiliations and every vulnerable person in society is expected to benefit from the intervention.
Meanwhile, about 6,417 households’ beneficiaries are being paid the cash grants in the West Mamprusi municipality.
