Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Cynthia Mamle Morrison has charged Municipal and District Chief Executives in the Upper East Region, to adopt stringent measures, to prevent unqualified persons from registering under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP).

She said the LEAP intervention is meant for the extremely poor and vulnerable in society. However, there are some persons who do not fall under the category, but always try to take advantage of the program for financial gain, and this has become a challenge for her ministry.

Speaking at a workshop in Bolgatanga to disseminate data collated by the Ghana National Household Registry in the Upper East Region, the Gender Minister said; “So many people want to be on the LEAP register, simply because we give the beneficiaries a few Cedis. But it is for the poorest of the poor”.

She, therefore, urged MDCEs to be honest and sincere and not allow anyone who is not qualified to be registered under LEAP because “it will not benefit the country”

The Ghana National Household Registry under the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection was mandated to establish a single national household register, from which social protection programs will select their beneficiaries in Ghana.

In 2018, the registry carried out its survey of the Upper East Region.

The workshop was held, to provide the Ghana National Household Registry, the opportunity to share the data gathered in their survey with stakeholders in the region.

Key among the findings were that; out of 184,125 households registered in the Upper East Region, 28 percent were categorized as the extremely poor, 37 percent were poor whereas 35 percent were non-poor households.

Dr. Prosper Laari, the coordinator for the Ghana National Household Registry said 1, 706 communities were covered in 13 districts during the survey. He added that 21 percent of these community were from the urban areas whiles 79 percent were rural and the total member population of 1,066,832.

The data from Ghana National Household Registry also revealed the Garu district as the most extremely poor district in the Upper East Region and the Bolgatanga Municipality as the least extremely poor in the region.

Dr Laari said “LEAP, LIPW, SP Capitation Grant and almost all existing social intervention programs have already started leveraging on this data to be able to identify those who need the interventions most”.

Upper East Regional Minister, Tangoba Abayage said she believed the data from the Ghana National Household Registry will be a key tool for eradicating poverty in the region.

Municipal and District Chief Executives, core district and municipal assembly staff, as well as officials from civil society organizations across the Upper East Region, who attended the data dissemination workshop, were confident that the data shared by the Ghana National Household Registry, will help them in the planning and implementation of their policies.