
GENERAL
Atebubu-Amantin LEAP implementation committee engages community focal persons

Date Created : 1/17/2025 12:00:00 AM : Story Author : Daniel Oduro-Stewart/Ghanadistricts.com
LEAP is bi-monthly cash transfer grant to poor and vulnerable households introduced in Ghana in 2008 with the goal of helping reduce poverty and build human capital.
According to Mr. Emmanuel Bukari the District Liaison Officer for the project, one key protocol of the programme is a quadrennial reassessment which has not been met since inception due to various reasons.
He said the exercise has been necessitated by the need to identify and determine the poverty status and eligibility of households that should benefit from the programme, reduce inclusion and exclusion errors as well as improve the efficiency in the allocation of budgets to the most vulnerable households.
Mr. Bukari who is also the municipal head of the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development indicated that the exercise will help update the beneficiary register, identify households that will no longer be eligible for LEAP and link them to other complementary services and support as well as enhance transparency, consistency and fairness by providing an even playing field for all extremely poor households to enroll onto the programme.
Touching on the eligibility criteria, he said extreme poor households on the existing register will remain whiles households classified as poor will be graduated from the programme with some one-off form of assistance to enable them become self-supporting whiles those found to be non-poor will be exited from the programme to make room for new beneficiaries.
Mr. Bukari took the focal persons through the pilot phase of the exercise and lessons learnt as well as key activities and pathways for the impending reassessment.
Participants asked questions on issues bothering them to which answers were provided, while they shared experiences and made suggestions towards a successful exercise.
Closing the meeting, Mr. Joseph K.B Tang the Atebubu-Amantin municipal Coordinating Director and chairman of the MLIC acknowledged the key role of the focal persons in the success of the exercise.
He thanked them for their voluntary spirit which has seen the programme thrive and urged them to beware of any tendency to politicize the exercise since that has the tendency to derail whatever progress has been made so far.
Present were Messrs. Abdul Aziz Toyibu municipal planning officer, Joel Apambila Kassim municipal statistician, Edward Garr Newlove assistant social development officer and Daniel Oduro-Stewart municipal information officer all members of the committee.