Government to compensate land owners - Quaye

Sheikh Ibrahim Cudjoe Quaye, Greater Accra Regional Minister, on Monday said that the government would critically review the issue of government acquired lands and pay compensation to the owners.

"Large tracts of land have been acquired by government in the country, particularly in the Greater Accra Region, which have not been utilised for their intended purpose and for which compensation has not been paid to their owners," he said, when he inaugurated a 12-member Commission of the Greater Accra Regional Lands commission in Accra.

The reconstituted lands commission would, among other things, tackle all land issues in the region, assist to bring sanity into the activities of land owners throughout the country, inspect and make recommendations as to the sustainability, or otherwise, of any land proposed to be acquired.

The Regional Minister said acquired lands that government has not paid compensation to their owners in the region, due to inability to raise the requisite funds, is estimated at 800 billion cedis. He noted that lands acquired for educational, health, water works, residential and industrial purposes had been encroached upon and a solution had to be found. Sheikh Quaye said as a first step, government was developing a strategic and systematic way of dealing with the issue.

He said encroachment on land has been identified as one of the major problems that militate against national development adding that "investors are not happy due to difficulties involved in land acquisition". He said encroachment on land acquired for water supply has threatened the survival of those systems, thereby creating an uncertain future for water supply to some of the urban centres as well as polluting the water supply system.

The Minister said government was committed to reform land laws and administration to attract investors, entrepreneurs and businessmen citing the Densu Dam in Accra and Owabi Dam in Kumasi as major encroachment points that pollute the water supply system and called for pragmatic measures to solve the problem. Professor Kasim Kasanga, Minister of Lands and Forestry, said the problems facing the region were due to over-concentration of administrative, commercial, educational, financial and other recreational facilities, thereby creating a lot of congestion. He said the region displays a great level of unplanned inner city and peri-urban development, land related conflicts, disturbance and high incidence of urban poverty due to land and its management, yet people continue to flock to the region.

Professor Kasanga charged the newly reconstituted commission to seriously check the proliferation of land guards, who extort money from landowners and those who acquire land. He said government was still in the process of settling the problems of ownership management and land title registration in the country. Professor George Kofi Ansah Ofosu-Amaah, chairman of the commission, pledged their readiness to bring sanity into the commission. He said land as a key to development has to be dealt with seriously and the commission would deal well with land transaction to develop the country.