Government's poverty alleviation programme lacks transparency - NDC

Accra, April 13, GNA - The National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Sunday said it would continue to call for the transparent implementation of the Livelihood Enhancement Against Poverty (LEAP), "under which the Government was giving money to people alleged to be poor." It said the whole programme was being operated in the dark and without any clear modalities and that Parliament had not designed any guidelines for its implementation.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra, Mr Alban Sumana Bagbin, Minority Leader, alleged that the Majority failed to explain to Parliament the modalities and the framework under which the money would be disbursed to the poor. "In that context, Parliament would have developed a formula of how the money can be used, but unfortunately, the NPP, using its executive power majority in Parliament began to use the LEAP for the reasons best known to themselves and no one can say the motives behind the disbursement." Despite this, he said, NDC Parliamentarians were reluctant to oppose the LEAP because members did not want to be misunderstood as objecting to a policy to fight poverty. Mr Bagbin said for such a policy to succeed and for no one in the populace to feel neglected and discriminated against, Parliament needed to be involved to make the policy efficient and transparent.

He said the LEAP was mentioned in the 2006 and 2007 Budget in which GH¢2 million was mentioned and later raised to GH¢22 million in the 2008 budget as allotment for the programme, under which a Secretariat was to be set up, to begin the registration of beneficiaries and disbursement. He said in the past when NDC introduced the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), it brought the document to Parliament, where it was deliberated on, and policy guides were formulated on its implementation. He said at the base of the country's medium term policy is poverty reduction and that if a government comes out with a budget statement that it was going to fight poverty under the LEAP, "and ominously allocated fund under it without any supporting document", it would be difficult for anyone to oppose it. "One can either oppose it on the basis of the document covering its implementation, the beneficiaries, how and which body would implement it."

The Minority Leader said research had shown that 16 African countries which had at one time or the other implemented the LEAP proved to be failures. "In some countries, screened study programmes showed that it gave room to party officials to use it for posh cars." The Government has persistently denied the NDC's claims that it was using the LEAP for political gains. At a press conference, Nana Akomea, Minister of Manpower and Employment said the implementation of LEAP was no political gimmick, and that government was pursuing it as another major social protection intervention to complement relief measures for categories of poor people in society. Mrs Oboshie Sai-Cofie, Minister for Information and National Orientation, also cautioned Ghanaians to desist from being cynical about programmes aimed at improving peoples' livelihood and urged them to rather give constructive alternatives to help solve the problem.