Gov’t to assist 2.2m extremely poor

All ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) in Ghana are implementing social intervention programmes in order to assist the estimated 2.2 million Ghanaians considered extremely poor, Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection has said.

According to her, estimates from the Ghana Statistical Service suggest 350,000 households, as well as 2.2 million Ghanaians are extremely poor, stressing that they are the target for the government of Ghana at the moment.

She asked: “Who is the poor? We have the global definition, somebody who receives less than one dollar and 25 [cents a day] and in Ghana our Statistical Service estimates that 350,000 households are extremely poor, so we have poor and we have extremely poor”.

“So, now as a government, our focus is on the extremely poor and 2.2 million Ghanaians are extremely poor.”

She further explained that her Ministry, as coordinator, will establish a common monitoring tool to ensure that the policy is implemented.

“Different ministries and sectors implement different social protection interventions. Our [The Ministry’s] task is to coordinate, so like we will identify a common monitoring tool, we will ensure that every month they come up with a report on the extent to which they are implementing their social protection, so we will keep an eye to make sure that they are actually implementing social protection programmes,” Mrs Lithur added.