50 THOUSAND RURAL POOR TO BENEFIT FROM GSOP TWO

About 400 rural communities in 60 selected districts in almost all the 10 regions are to benefit from the second phase of the Ghana Social Opportunities Programme this year. 

The Programme plans to spend 20 million Dollars on Labour Intensive Public Works under which about 50 thousand poverty-stricken rural dwellers have been estimated to benefit directly to enhance their living conditions. 

The Ghana Social Opportunities Programme, GSOP, is a World Bank Government of Ghana social intervention to reduce abject poverty in the rural areas.

 The Labour Intensive Public Works component of the Programme, which is to start from this month, involves the rehabilitation of access roads, re-afforestation  of degraded communal lands among others social projects, will use manual labour of indigenous people who are extremely poor with the aim of helping them to earn decent economic lives.

 The National Coordinator of the Ghana Social Opportunities Programme, GSOP, Robert Austin, disclosed these at the end of a two-day sensitization workshop at Akyawkrom in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality of Ashanti for  key stakeholders from the  all the beneficiary districts. 

The participants were made up of District Chief Executives, District Planning Officers, District Finance Officers and representatives of concerned financial institutions who were taken through the mission and goals of the GSOP. 

The National Coordinator disclosed also that in the first phase of GSOP which spanned 2012 and last year, a total of about 110 thousand rural dwellers have benefitted up to 34 million Ghana Cedis from the Programme by taking part in the rehabilitation of feeder roads, dams and re-afforestation projects. 

According to Mr. Austin, through GSOP, a total of 120 poor roads, one hundred and 11 dams or dug outs and one thousand 492 hectares of mango plantations have been rehabilitated while extreme poverty has been reduced in the beneficiary communities most of which are in the three northern regions. 

The National GSOP Coordinator noted that the second phase of the Programme has seen the number of beneficiary communities increased from 49 in the first phase to 60 under which the beneficiary people will earn seven Ghana Cedis every six hours of work in projects to be identified by the District Assemblies. 

Mr. Austin emphasized also that under the second phase, the beneficiaries will be paid their stipends through Electronic payment systems like E-Zwich to address challenges of delays and misappropriation in the payments so as to ensure efficiency and sustainability of the Programme. 

A Deputy Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye, entreated particularly the District Chief Executives to show extra commitment to the successful implementation of the second phase of the GSOP in order to ensure that it achieves its primary objective of creating income for the rural poor.  

 According to him, the main interest of the funding agency of GSOP which is the World Bank, is to realize that the initiative makes positive impact on the targeted people. 

For this reason, Nii Lantey asked the DCEs not only to help  to identify projects dear to the heart of the beneficiary communities, but also partner the financial institutions to ensure that the money gets to the right people.