I’ll punish LEAP extortionists - Otiko Djaba

The Gender, Children and Social Protection Minister, Otiko Afisah Djaba has warned District Social Welfare Officers across the country, who extort money from Livelihood Empowerment Programme against Poverty (LEAP) beneficiaries under the pretext of hiring chairs and canopies to organize programmes for them to desist from such practice to avert punishment.

According to Ms Afisah Djaba, some District Social Welfare officers connive with Community Implementation Committee (CLIC) members to extort between GHC3 and GHC5 from beneficiaries of Livelihood Empowerment Programme against Poverty (LEAP) to organize programmes for them.

She warned that “I will not hesitate to punish any official found culpable.”

The Ministry has contracted CLIC members in the various communities to help identify extremely poor households.

She explained that CLIC members, after payment have been made to the beneficiaries, go back to them to extort their meager monies.

The Minister gave the warning when she addressed municipal and district social welfare officers and community programme care programme heads at a three-day training workshop in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region yesterday.

The officers, drawn from various parts of country, are to receive training on the case management manuals and others.

“Reports I have received since assuming office suggest that there are grievances, complaints and concerns from LEAP beneficiaries, community members, opinion leaders, chiefs, queen mothers and other stakeholders that require urgent attention and resolutions. I wish to caution that henceforth this must stop. I encourage you to also send the same notice to CLIC members and focal persons or whoever is involved in this act. After this notice, I would not hesitate to sanction anybody found culpable or complicit in issues of extortion in any district under your watch,” she warned.

Addressing the participants, the minister revealed that under the leadership of President Akufo-Addo, her ministry has added Fistula patients, autism patients, cerebral palsy patients, cancer patients and hemophilia, orphans and vulnerable children, persons with severe disability without productive capacity, the aged above 65 years, members of witches camps, leprosaria, among others, to the list of beneficiaries.

Areas that need urgent address include underpayment, lack of reports on beneficiary deceased patients and extortion and so I ask you the officers to take them seriously and acquire skills to address them, she added.