Stop all forms of land racketeering- Lands Commission staff cautioned

The Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, Alhaji Sulemana Mahama, has asked workers of the Commission to help instil discipline in the land market by doing away with all forms of land racketeering.

“As the government agency mandated to deliver land titles, register deeds and other services, we need to instil discipline in the land market by curbing the incidence of land encroachment, unapproved development schemes, multiple or illegal land sales and land speculation,” he urged.

He said the multiplicity of challenges that confronted land administration required workers who were diligent and committed to delivering quality services.

Alhaji Mahama, who has been touring all the regions to assess the work of the commission’s staff, said efforts were being made to weed out negative attitude among the workers.

Diligence

Alhaji Mahama explained to the Daily Graphic that the regional tour formed part of efforts being made to ensure that bottlenecks to effective land administration were removed.

 He said it was a known fact that stakeholders and clients were dissatisfied with the services the commission had been rendering and asked the staff to change their attitude to turn the narrative around.

 “I can not pretend to be working hard when the workers do not have a renewal of mind and attitude, when they have a task to perform by making sure that the turn-around time for land services is 30 days,” Alhaji Mahama stressed.

Digitisation

The Chairman of the Lands Commission board, Mr Stephen Ayesu Ntim, who was part of the team that toured the regions, advised the staff to ensure that the government’s dream of moving all land records from the manual to the digital state was successful.

 He said although the commission was faced with challenges ranging from low salaries, lack of motivation, inadequate staff, to the lack of office space and equipment, it was important for the workers to make the best out of what was available as steps were being taken to resource them.

“The onus is on every worker of the commission to justify their inclusion and change from their old ways of doing things in line with the vision of the commission to become a centre of excellence for land delivery services,” he said.

 Intervention

The Deputy Executive Secretary, Corporate Services of the Commission, Mr Jones Ofori-Boadu, said the Ghana Enterprise land Information System (GELIS), a software for the commission, that was being piloted in three districts in Accra, would ensure high service delivery when it was fully rolled out.

He said the software would make for easy archival and retrieval of information.

Mr Ofori-Boadu said the government would soon conclude on plans to map out the country and that would set the tone for major sectional maps to be produced for some areas to be declared as registration zones.

Recall

In line with efforts to instil discipline in the land market, the Lands Commission in 2018, asked licensed surveyors who were fronting for quacks to flout laws and regulations for surveying and mapping of land, to stop that practice otherwise they would be sanctioned.

 It also warned persons who were parading as surveyors to desist from the practice before the law clamped down on them.