A total of 146,074 beneficiary households in the 185 districts under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme have been enrolled onto the Ghana Inter-bank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) electronic-payment platform.
The enrollment onto the GhiPSS electronic-payment (e-payment) platform involved the capturing of biometric data of beneficiaries to facilitate the cash grant transfer electronically.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency by the LEAP Programme Secretariat explained that the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, with oversight responsibility over the programme, contracted GhIPSS to roll out the e-payment system for all LEAP beneficiaries through its Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).

The statement said the LEAP beneficiaries now on the E-Zwich platform would receive their social cash grant through the electronic payment system.

The e-payment system would replace the manual system of transferring cash to the LEAP beneficiaries and it is to improve the cash transfer arrangement, making it more robust, efficient and secure.

The platform also comes with a second level biometric verification which would authenticate the identity of LEAP beneficiaries thereby avoiding the issues of intermediaries and preventing impersonation during payments.

The statement said the system would lead to financial inclusion as beneficiaries would automatically be enrolled onto the banking system.

It said beneficiaries would have greater control over the management of their funds as they would decide when to access such funds.

The e-payment system would also deliver accurate and timely generation of payment reports for the LEAP Programme.

The LEAP Programme is both a conditional and unconditional cash transfer which is being implemented by the Department of Social Development under the Ministry of Gender and Social Protection.

The programme aims at reducing poverty by increasing consumption and promoting access to services and opportunities among the extreme poor and vulnerable households with orphans and vulnerable children.

Also, households with elderly persons 65 years and above without any support and severely disabled persons without any productive capacity are catered for and recently added is extremely poor pregnant women and children under two years old.

The statement appealed to all stakeholders and the general public to support the e-payment enrollment exercise in the LEAP districts nation-wide.