Ghana reviews Land Administration Project

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, has said the government was determined to pursue the objectives set out in the National Land Policy to reform land administration.

He said the persistent public outcries on bureaucratic hurdles and long documentation periods that potential developers and investors go through to get their lands registered was unacceptable

The Minister was addressing stakeholders and participants at the Second Ghana Land Administration Project (LAP) 2 at Sogakope at their Annual Review conference at Sogakope on the theme, “Decentralising Land Administration Services for Wealth Creation.”

The conference was to review the activities and policies of LAP-2 and to outline the way forward.

Alhaji Fuseini said investors, both large and small needed assured rights to the land and property in which they invested.

He lauded the activities of LAP2 and said it was noteworthy that the Land Administration Project had placed emphasis on addressing this nagging issue of institutional bottlenecks and lack of adequate decentralistion.

The Minister said it was heartwarming that the objective of the Project Component 2 had been dedicated to institutional reform and reengineered business processes to ultimately achieve transparent, efficient and effective delivery of land administration that would ensure customer satisfaction.

He expressed regret about the country’s land tenure system and land use planning in the midst of abundant land resources and said this had become one of the banes in the socio-economic development.

This, Alhaji Fuseini said this was due to the large number of unregistered land rights, unplanned settlements, high rate of encroachments on state lands, increased number of land litigation as well as the obnoxious activities of land guards which pervaded land administration system.

He appealed to the National Coordinating Unit of LAP2 not only to provide the necessary mechanisms but also time-tested solutions to the government to address those challenges.

Alhaji Fuseini said in addition to the $5 million funding support from the World Bank, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) had provided a grant of three million Canadian dollars for the Project and urged implementing agencies to use the fund judiciously.

The National Project Coordinator, Dr. Isaac Bonsu Karikari, said despite the challenges faced by LAP in 2012, it had made strides in the preparation of a National Spatial Development Framework as well as the modernization of survey and mapping which will aid effective spatial planning and land registration processes.

He said the Project had also made progress in the efforts at computerizing land information systems to support the judiciary in the establishment of land courts as well as supporting some communities in the Accra Metropolitan Assembly in a street naming and House numbering exercise.

Dr. Bonsu said LAP-2 was a medium to change the face of land administration and that there was the need to make the regions work through its structures by setting up Regional LAP Secretariats to deepen the decentralization concept of the Project.

The Technical Director in charge of Lands at the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Hamidu Baryeh, reiterated the need for the country to have a vigorous land administration and management system and appealed to  Implementers of the Project and other stakeholders to derive  concrete policies on land administration for the rapid economic transformation and development of the country.

Source: GNA