Proper land administration ownership non-negotiable
Land, undoubtedly, is one of the most important factors of production.
Advertisement
Almost all human activities depend on land.
Likewise, every sector of the economy requires land to function – be it education, agriculture, health or the service industry.
In effect, just as farmers need land to produce food crops, so does the government and individuals need land for infrastructural projects.
In the wake of rapid economic growth, sprawling urbanisation and increased activities of real estate developers, the demand has risen astronomically.
Hence, it costs a fortune to own a piece of land in an urban area, particularly Accra, Tema, Kumasi and their immediate environs.
In spite of this, the current situation is such that every individual wants to own a piece of land for oneself or for one’s children.
Land ownership is also used for investment in what has become known as land banking.
This is where an individual purchases a parcel of land, registers and keeps it for a future rise in its value before selling portions off.
This intense race to own a piece of land has brought along major challenges in the value chain.
Indeed, land acquisition and the processing of land documents continue to be a major challenge in the country.
The multiple sale of land, many a time, due to chieftaincy and family disputes over ownership of the resource, remains one of the biggest challenges to effective land administration in the country.
Even within the same families, different people sell the same piece of land to different people without the involvement of licensed surveyors.
This often puts unsuspecting members of the public who patronise the lands at risk and has resulted in many protracted land litigation.
There are also instances where officials of the Lands Commission turn themselves into agents to process land documents for people without due process.
It gets worse with middlemen, popularly known as ‘goro boys’, who charge exorbitant fees to process land documents for clients.
It is, therefore, not surprising that a survey on corruption in Ghana based on people’s experiences last year rated the Lands Commission as the fourth most corrupt institution in the country.
The Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), conducted the survey with the support of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The Daily Graphic sees the development as an anathema to national development as it will scare away investors who need dispute-free lands for investment.
In this era of technology, the Daily Graphic believes that the Lands Commission must put in place systems to remove the direct human interface in order to sanitise the system and purge itself of the corruption tag.
Doing that will also ensure effective land administration.
The Daily Graphic thinks that it is imperative for the commission to also provide timelines for the delivery of services to instil confidence in its processes.
The resolution of the challenges associated with land acquisition and registration can also be facilitated with the licensing of agents with whom members of the public can directly deal.
We believe that it will be easy for the public to know that they are dealing with genuine agents and that they are not throwing their money away or putting up houses only for them to be demolished.
It is our conviction that the use of technology, skilled staff and professionals, as well as licensed agents, will help avert many of the issues relating to land acquisition and registration that many people encounter in their bid to legalise their land ownership.
The Daily Graphic believes that the Lands Commission and its allied agencies must also intensify public education to enable clients to use due processes in acquiring land and registering it.
The Lands Commission must also be seen to be exposing and punishing its errant staff to deter others from doing so.
The Daily Graphic also calls for more punitive actions against people, be they chiefs or family members, who indulge in multiple sale of land.
It is high time we went the direction of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who does not hesitate to destool chiefs who sell land indiscriminately.
The Daily Graphic strongly believes that it is now incumbent on the commission to simplify its processes to make it easy for every Ghanaian to transact business with it without let or hindrance.
