Forty-one MMDAs to benefit from $89.1m project
Forty-one Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) have been selected to benefit from a five-year Ghana Social Opportunities Project (GSOP) that would be financed with $89.1 million.
The International Development Agency is providing $88.6 million of the package and the Ghana Government is expected to make available the remaining $0.5 million.
The five-year project, which took off in October last year, would support Government’s National Social Protection Strategy, Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Programme, labour intensive public works, capacity building and project management and coordination.
The Ministries of Local Government and Rural Development, Finance and Economic Planning, and Employment and Social Welfare, the implementing bodies, would work with the MMDAs to ensure the successful execution of the project.
Mr Acquinas Tawiah Quansah, Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, announced these in a speech read for him at a day’s national orientation workshop on GSOP, in Kumasi on Thursday.
The programme, which was organized by the Ministry, brought together representatives of the MMDAs, government departments and agencies.
It aimed at sensitizing participants on their roles in the implementation of the project.
Mr Quansah said the project that formed part of the drive to create an all-inclusive and socially empowered society sought to provide a safety net for persons living in extreme poverty, and to exclude as well as rationalize government’s social protection spending.
He expressed concern about extreme poverty levels in some communities and said he was confident that the project would make life better for the poor.
Mr Quansah said the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in collaboration with other stakeholders had started recruiting staff for the project and by next September the full complement of workers would be assembled for the smooth implementation of the project.
Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, Ashanti Regional Minister, said the project formed part of the Better Ghana Agenda, which was aimed at improving the standards of living of people though employment generation.
He tasked the participants to judiciously apply skills and knowledge they had acquired at the workshop, to ensure the successful execution of the project.
Source: GNA