Accra, Feb.24, GNA — SEND GHANA, a non-profit organisation, has appealed to the Government to establish a dedicated fund to avert the incessant delay in payments of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) grants.
Dr Emmanuel Ayifah, Deputy Country Director, SEND GHANA, said the Fund would assist Government to always make money available to beneficiaries instead of borrowing, to incur more cost, as provided in the Social Protection Bill, yet to be passed.
Dr Ayifah told the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of a press conference in Accra that LEAP, which was one of the flagship programmes that was beneficial to the extremely poor and vulnerable in society, was being disrupted by consistent delays in payment.
The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) is a cash transfer programme introduced by the Government in 2008 for extremely poor and vulnerable households to reduce poverty.
Currently, about 344,023 households benefit from the intervention.
Dr Ayifah said the expectations of the beneficiaries, who sometimes borrowed money to sustain themselves were often cut short by the delays in the payment of the grants.
The Deputy Country Director noted that information regarding the specific reasons for the delays had not been effectively communicated to stakeholders.
‘‘Our checks reveal that there has not been an attempt by the LEAP Management Secretariat, and the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection to engage the beneficiaries and other relevant stakeholders on when payment will be made. This practice in our view is unacceptable and defies the principle of good governance and accountability,’’ he said.
Dr Ayifah appealed to Government to fast track the completion of the registration of people for the Ghana National Household Registry to ensure that the ‘‘real poor people’’ were on the LEAP intervention.
Mr Mohammed Tajudeen Abdulai, Communication Officer, SEND GHANA, who read the speech on behalf of the Social Accountability Forum, Civil Society Platform for Social Protection, Civil Society Platform on SDG 10 and SEND GHANA, expressed displeasure at the delay of payments.
He said the delays were pervasive in the past couple of years ranging from one to three months, noting that since November 2019, multiple LEAP payments had been delayed by more than two months due to budget allocations not being disbursed on time to the beneficiaries.
The six payments accrued for January to December 2021, Mr Abdulai said, were delayed with the cycle payment for November 2021 currently outstanding for three months, and that of January 2022 overdue.
He said on September 7, 2021, his outfit issued a statement calling on the Government to immediately release funds for payment of the 73rd cycle, which was due in July 2021, and was followed by another press conference on September 14 to release cash grants regularly and make timely payments.
The Communications Officer said since then, the 73rd and 74th payments were made albeit the usual delays.
The statement urged Government (Ministry of Finance) to ensure that grants were transferred to the appropriate agency on time, who would in turn, ensure that beneficiaries received their grants on the due dates.
‘‘Our collective efforts in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, hunger, and reduce inequalities by 2030, will be pointless if we allow needless infractions to undermine impactful social protection interventions such as LEAP,’’ it said.
GNA