The government would wean-off some beneficiaries under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, Mr Frank Adjei, the Kintampo Municipal Director of the Department of Social Welfare, has said.
Most to be affected are orphans who have attained 18 years, and still enjoying the cash grant and they would be supported to engage into sustainable trade to fend for themselves. Government through the LEAP programme provides cash grant ranging between GH¢64.00 and GH¢106.00 to beneficiaries for their upkeep.
They comprised vulnerable people who are 65 years and above, people with severe disabilities, pregnant women, orphans in a household.
During an experience sharing forum held at Kadelso in the Kintampo Municipality, Mr Adjei said the LEAP programme was introduced to support only vulnerable and extremely poor people in society.
“LEAP is basically meant for susceptible people who could not engage in any economic activities due to their vulnerabilities”, he reiterated.
The forum, was jointly organized by the Coalition of Right to Information, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), and Community Youth Development Foundation (CYDF), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) with support from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), another NGO.
It was aimed at sensitizing the people on the LEAP and identifying basic challenges and helping to resolve such problems to sustain its implementation.
Mr Adjei said though the LEAP programme was impacting positively on the socio-economic livelihoods of the beneficiaries, there is the need to identify and support orphan beneficiaries who were school dropouts to go into employable skills training to secure their future.
This, he noted, would also pave the way to register and include more qualified people who are not benefiting from the programme.
Mr Adjei said his department has received information that some of the beneficiaries were into alcoholism, and other unhealthy lifestyle and warned the department would not hesitate to wean-off beneficiaries who failed to use the cash grants judiciously.
Madam Mina Mensah, the Head of Africa Office of the CHRI, noted that cash grants provided to beneficiaries were inadequate and called on the government to increase the amount.
