GH¢30 Per Household For 6 Months In U.E. R

The World Bank and the World Food Programme (WFP) are disbursing GH¢472, 500 cash transfer to 5,250 people in five districts in the Upper East Region as a form of emergency relief package to mitigate the plight of the people who were mostly affected by the flood and the drought that hit the region last year.

 The beneficiary districts are Bongo, Talensi-Nabdam, Builsa, Garu-Tempani and Kassena-Nankana. One thousand and fifty people from each district are to benefit from the package.

    The emergency relief package, which is being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) through the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) is supposed to last for six months. Each household would receive GH¢30  every second month for the next six months.

    The Bongo District is the first among the districts to benefit from the package. The Ghana Post is administering the payment.

    The Regional Director of the Department of Social Welfare (DSW), Mr Christopher Babooroh, at the commencement of the disbursement ceremony at Bongo, said the programme was meant to alleviate the plight of the poorest of the poor and noted that the World Bank and the WFP initiated the programme to help the people in the region who were mostly affected by the flood and the drought that hit the area last year.

 Mr Babooroh indicated that the programme was also targeted at meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

     He indicated that the cash transfer was not meant to buy votes and said it was only meant to assist the poorest of the poor.

He entreated the beneficiaries to use the money judiciously to the benefit of their families.

The leader of the monitoring team from the headquarters of the DSW in Accra, Ms Victoria Natsu, who was in the region to monitor the disbursement of the cash transfers, reiterated that the cash transfer was not based on political grounds but meant to help the poorest of the poor.