Seventeen Municipal and District Assemblies in three regions have taken delivery of motorbikes to undertake monitoring and supervision of activities implemented under the Ghana Productive Safety Net Project.

They are Central Gonja and East Gonja Municipal in the Savannah Region, Krachi West, Krachi Nchumuru, Krachi East, Kadjebi and Nkwanta North in the Oti Region, and Mion, Tatali-Sangule, Zabzugu, Saboba, Gushegu, Nanton, Kpandai and Nanumba South in the Northern Region, all of which received two motorbikes each while North East Gonja District in the Savannah Region and Karaga District in the Northern Region received four motorbikes each.

Alhaji Shani Alhassan Saibu, Northern Regional Minister, who handed over the keys to the representatives of the beneficiary Assemblies in Tamale, urged them to collaborate to deliver under the project to alleviate poverty in communities.

The Ghana Productive Safety Net Project is a pro-poor intervention being implemented jointly by the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, and the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and funded by the World Bank with counterpart funding from the government of Ghana.

Phase one of the project, which commenced in June 2019 and ended in December 2022, involved two flagship programmes, Labour Intensive Public Works, and Productive Inclusion, while the second phase began in January 2023.

Even though it is a national project, the majority of it is concentrated in the five regions in the north, and it is mainly implemented during the agriculture off-season when there is little work to be done and had been designed to use the beneficiaries of the communities for the various interventions to make some incomes.

Alhaji Saibu said the project was scaled up because it was yielding results and urged the District Chief Executives to ensure that the project achieved even better results.

Mr Samuel Amo-Nimoh, Zonal Coordinator, Tamale, Ghana Productive Safety Net Project, who gave details of the project, said ‘Under the first phase, if you take the Northern Region alone, a total amount of GHc6,499,387 was spent on beneficiaries; unskilled labour. The Labour-Intensive Public Works used unskilled labour and they are paid wages.’

Mr Amo-Nimoh added that ‘The beneficiaries undertook 13 sub-projects including feeder roads, dams and climate change and the total number of people, who benefited was 3,659. And these interventions happened during the long dry season, and when the rain returned, the beneficiaries returned to their farms, the majority were peasant farmers. They reinvested the incomes they made in the procurement of seeds, fertilizer, and other items and some few too were petty traders.’

He said ‘In addition, we have the second component, Productive Inclusion. Some of the beneficiaries, after they completed the project, feeder roads, climate change, those, who showed characteristics of entrepreneurship were selected together with those from the LEAP households and were given training and provided grants, and they also went ahead to undertake small and medium business enterprises such as soap making, groundnut paste processing, cassava processing, guinea fowl and poultry farming, dry season farming and other enterprises that are locally-based, shea butter procession, and nut processing.’

He said ‘Because of the performance of the project, the World Bank had given the government additional funding to upscale and enhance the activities under phase two, which started in January 2023. Under this new phase, the number of beneficiaries MMDAs have increased from 80 to 100. As a result, the Tamale Zonal Coordinating Office too has gotten two additional Assemblies, North East Gonja, and Karaga.’

He said ‘The distribution of the motorbikes is to enable the main actors, which is the Assemblies, to support them with means of movement to project sites. During the first phase, we provided three motorbikes to each of the Assemblies, and under the second phase, we are augmenting this fleet with an additional two each. For the new entrants, they receive four motorbikes each to enable them to undertake monitoring and supervision of project implementation.’

Mr Mohammed Musah Tindawu, North East Gonja District Chief Executive, who spoke on behalf of the beneficiary Assemblies after receiving the keys to the motorbikes, gave assurance that they would be used judiciously to achieve the purpose.

Source: Ghana News Agency