Parliament asked to regulate land acquisition
Officials of the Lands Commission in the Northern Region have entreated Parliament to consider enacting a law that will regulate the acquisition of very large tracts of land by just an individual or foreigners.
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They stressed the need to place a ceiling on the number of plots an individual or a foreigner could acquire at a time in order to bring sanity into the land sector.
The Regional Lands Officer,Mr Yaw Aboagye Kyei and the Head of the Public and Vested Land Management Division, Mr Peter Osei Owusu, made the appeal when an 18-member Parliamentary Select Committee on Lands and Forestry visited the offices of the Lands Commission as part of their duty tour of the Northern Region.
The committee was led by its chairman; Mr Albert Abongo.They toured the offices of the Stool Lands Secretariat, the Savannah Cement Factory and the Mole National Park. The visit was to enable the parliamentarians to acquaint themselves with the challenges affecting those sectors.
Reacting to concerns raised by some of the parliamentarians about the growing phenomenon where some individuals including foreigners are acquiring large tracts of land in the country without limitation, Mr Owusu corroborated that in one particular instance, a private company acquired 86,000 acres of land in the region. He said there were other instances where such a situation existed in the region.
He said the situation was becoming a great concern for the officials of the Lands Commission. He observed that if that was not checked in the region, it would ultimately affect farming and other viable activities in the region.
"Indeed it is regrettable that there is no law limiting how many plots or acres of land an individual can acquire in this country; if we are not careful, one day all our viable lands would be sold out and that will affect a lot of things in the country" he noted.
Briefing the committee members on the activities of the commission, Mr Kyei observed that the core mandate of the commission was to manage government lands and advise government on policy issues.
He said since the commission started implementing the Land Administration Project in 2003, it had brought some level of progress in the sector. He, however, stressed the need for a review of the fees charged on some aspects of processing land documents.
The regional lands officer equally expressed concern about the inadequate logistics, particularly, transportation which was affecting the smooth operations at the commission.
By Vincent Amenuveve/Ghana
