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The Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme, has commenced a nation-wide enrollment exercise for all LEAP beneficiaries onto the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) Electronic – Payment (E-Payment) platform form 10th to 24thMarch, 2016 in all LEAP districts nation – wide.

The enrollment exercise is aimed at capturing the biometric data of beneficiaries to facilitate cash grant transfer electronically.  The biometric registration will cover a total of 146,074 beneficiary households in the 185 LEAP districts nation-wide. The Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement System (GhIPSS) has been contracted by the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), the oversight agency for LEAP, to roll out the Electronic Payment (E-Payments) system for all LEAP beneficiaries through its Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs).

The LEAP beneficiaries will thus be registered onto the E-Zwich platform and receive their social cash grant through this platform. The E-Payment system will replace the manual system of transferring cash to the LEAP beneficiaries and it has the objective of improving the cash transfer arrangement, making it more robust, efficient and secure.

This platform also comes with it a second level biometric verification, which will authenticate the identity of LEAP beneficiaries thereby avoiding the issues of intermediaries and prevent impersonation during payments.

The system will lead to financial inclusion as beneficiaries would automatically be enrolled onto the banking system.  Beneficiaries will have greater control over the management of their funds as they will decide when to access such funds.  The E- Payment system will 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 MoGCSP.  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, elderly persons 65 years and above without any support and severely disabled persons without any productive capacity and recently the extremely poor pregnant women and children under 2 years old.

The LEAP Programme wishes to appeal to the beneficiaries to take advantage of this opportunity to enroll onto the E-Payment platform. The programme also appeals to all stakeholders and the general public to support the E-Payment enrollment exercise in the LEAP districts nation-wide.