Govt to expand LEAP coverage
By Ama Amankwah Baafi
THE government plans to scale up its spending on the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) with an amount of GH¢50.00 million and to extend coverage of the programme to more than 250,000 beneficiary households.
The Minister of Finance, Mr Seth Terkper, during the presentation of the 2016 Budget to Parliament yesterday, said the policy was needed to address the weaknesses in social protection (SP) programmes and to serve as a coordinated approach towards the effective and efficient provision of SP generally, and ensure that the programmes were better targeted.
The main interventions being implemented currently include the LEAP, Social Inclusion Transfers (SITs), School Feeding, Take-home Rations for Girls, Free School Uniforms, Free Exercise Books, Programme on Elimination of Child Labour, Education Capitation Grants and Supplementary Grant (GEP).
The rest are the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Exemptions, Government Subsidy for Senior High Schools (SHS), GETFund Scholarships, Senior Secondary Scholarships and Girls-PASS Scholarships.
The government, he said, would maintain those programmes as priority areas of spending in 2016.
Mr Terkper also indicated that the government had made provisions for the implementation of a social protection policy (SPP) in the 2016 budget as part of a broader national development strategy to address the extreme poverty and vulnerabilities in the country.
SPP
According to the finance minister, the social protection programmes implemented over the years had sought to provide some compatriots respite from hardships and, further, equip them to participate in the basic socio-economic activities.
 Those programmes, however, had not always achieved the expected outcomes due to poor targeting and uncoordinated approach to their delivery.
“The policy document seeks to structure and anchor social protection with accompanying institutional reforms to deliver identified priority interventions. It seeks to clarify social protection objectives to which Ghana can aspire at each stage of our development. The document, therefore, defines social protection for Ghana as a range of actions carried out by the state and other parties in response to vulnerability and poverty, which seeks to guarantee relief for those sections of the population who for any reason are not able to provide for themselves,” he said.
The SPP identifies three main vulnerability categories: The chronically poor (the severely disabled, terminally ill, rural unemployed, urban unemployed and subsistent smallholders); the economically at risk (food crop farmers, persons on the street, internally displaced persons, orphans, informal sector workers, widows, older persons and migrants); and the socially vulnerable (tuberculosis sufferers, victims of domestic violence, homeless persons, people living on the street, internally displaced persons and female-headed households).
SEND Ghana
The Country Director of SEND Ghana, Mr George Osei-Bimpeh, said such a policy should clearly address the challenges associated with the release of resources for the implementation of the social protection programmes.
“Is there a guarantee that without a proper framework for institutional collaboration greater outcome can be achieved?,” he asked.
ISODEC
A Policy Analyst at the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), Mrs Charlotte Esenam Afudego, explained that social intervention programmes must be well targeted to reap the desired benefits and explained that there should be coordination among all stakeholders involved and these interventions should be able to target the poor ones who need it most.
 LEAP
Mr Terkper said that in 2016, the government would scale up spending on the LEAP with GH¢50.00 million and that it would be expanded to cover over 250,000 beneficiary households. It would also strengthen the institutional arrangements for SP.
The main social insurance interventions currently being implemented in Ghana are the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).
At the end of September 2015, GH¢929.69 million had been transferred to the National Health Fund, while SSNIT received GH¢650.47 million for the same period.
In 2016, GH¢1,497.28 million is projected for NHIS transfers, while SSNIT will receive GH¢1,289.51 million.
Spending on poverty-reduction activities
Mr Terkper said spending on poverty-related activities were government expenditures incurred on the activities of MDAs and MMDAs which were considered to be poverty related and had, each year, supported the provision of basic education, primary health care, poverty-focused agriculture, rural water, feeder roads and rural electrification.
“Total government spending on pro-poor activities for 2016 is estimated at GH¢8,754.13 million, representing 22.67 per cent of GH¢38,611.44 million total government expenditure. Out of a total budget for 2015 of GH¢34,402.43 million (which excludes tax expenditures and foreign-financed capital expenditures), an amount of GH¢7,594.34 million, representing 22.08 per cent was earmarked for poverty-reduction activities. By the end of September, 2015, a total of GH¢5,290.87 million had been spent, representing 24.18 per cent of the total government expenditures of GH¢21,884.32 million,” he said.

Other poverty
For 2016,  GH¢2,511.70 million is projected to be spent on “Other Poverty” and this represents 6.51 per cent of total government expenditure.
According to the finance minister, GH¢1,263.46 million was spent on other poverty-related activities, representing 5.78 per cent of total government expenditure at the end of the first three quarters of 2015.
The other poverty expenditure include spending on social welfare, public safety, drainage, human rights, environmental protection, rural housing, legal aid and decentralisation. GB

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