Government has pledged to expand the Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP) programme to all 2.5 million extremely poor individuals by 2024.

According to Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, this is in line with its tradition of compassion and care for the underprivileged.

“We expect to strengthen social protection through increases in social spending to protect the most vulnerable and the poor from the impact of adjustments under the programme”, the Minister pointed out.

In the 2023 Budget, the government made specific provisions for doubling the LEAP payment per beneficiary household from ¢45 per month to ¢90 with progressive increase in the number of beneficiary households from the current 344,185 households.

Mr. Ofori-Atta also announced that government will increasing the budgetary allocation for the School Feeding Programme to compensate for higher cost of meals and also to ensure a more efficient management of the programme.

Again, it will increase the Capitation Grant over time as part of measures to improve foundational learning.