The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has begun the 88th cycle cash grant payment to beneficiary households under government's Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) Programme. LEAP is a social protection programme for extremely poor households aimed at reducing extreme poverty by smoothening consumption and promoting human capital development through cash grants and access to other social services. A statement from the Ministry to the Ghana News Agency, signed by Dr Myles Ongoh, Head of the LEAP Programme, said the Programme had a total number of 350,141 households. Out of the number, 325,960 households would be paid nationwide. The statement said for the 88th cycle payment, households with one eligible member would be paid GHC128.00 while households with two eligible members would be paid GHC152.00. Households with three eligible members would be paid GHC176.00, and households with four or more eligible members would be paid GHC212.00. However, the remaining 25,181 households, the statement said, would not be paid due to ongoing validation and reassessment exercises across the country. 'We are grateful for the continuous support to the LEAP programme from our partners (UNICEF, The World Bank, World Food Programme and Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, Accra)) and other stakeholders,' it said. Source: Ghana News Agency