Govt is committed to return lands to rightful owners

Accra, Nov. 3, GNA - Alhaji Collins Dauda, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, on Tuesday reiterated government's commitment to return parcels of land acquired but not utilised for public purposes to their owners.

He therefore urged landowners to assist government to facilitate the exercise because since the divesting exercise begun there had been multiple claimants to some parcels of land and government could not entrust those lands into their hands.

Speaking at the Meet-The-Press series in Accra, Alhaji Dauda said to demonstrate its commitment; government had return 60 per cent of the Nungua Farmlands to the Nungua Stool.

He said Cabinet was considering divesting some vested lands to their rightful owners based on some criteria: the continued validity of the reasons for vesting; adequate capacity of the stools to management divested lands in trust for their subjects and appropriate governance structures to ensure equity and accountability to the subjects.

Others are the existence of a national programme for the comprehensive development of the lands for the benefit of the stool, its people and Ghanaians and the exclusion of state properties from the lands to be divested.

Alhaji Dauda said until the divestiture was completed, government would continue to hold authority over such lands and advised the public to refrain from transacting any business over them except with the Lands Commission. He announced that a policy would be developed to enable government speed up payment of compensation and clear the unpaid compensation backlogs for lands acquired by the State.

"This would be done through dialogue with traditional authorities and land owning stools, skins and families whose lands are acquired by the State and compensation have not been paid throughout the country," he said. Touching on the challenges in the land delivery system, Alhaji Dauda said the Ministry would continue to minimise the bottlenecks through the implementation of the Land Administration Project.

He said with the formation of the new Lands Commission, it was expected that land delivery and the administration of lands would improve. "However, the Ministry would continue to embark on public education on the land policy, land laws and the need for Title Registration," he added. On the forest and wildlife sub-sector, Alhaji Dauda said, to address the dwindling forest and wildlife resources and improve governance issues in the management of the forest and wildlife resources, the Ministry would strengthen public accountability and transparency in official processes and promote participatory and consultative platforms for policy making, regulation and management of the resources.

He said the Ministry would strengthen the capacity of both State and non-State actors for effective service delivery.

Alhaji Dauda noted that Ghana could only boast of 1.6 million hectares of forest cover out of the estimated 8.2 million hectares. He said the deforestation rate was estimated to be 65,000 hectares per annum, adding that with such rate of deforestation, Ghana would be without forest within the next 23 years if prudent measures were not instituted to address the factors responsible for this current situation.

"In our effort to reverse the dwindling wood resource base and increase the country's forest cover, Cabinet has given the approval on a proposed National Forest Plantation Development Programme to increase the forest cover and promote employment for Ghanaians and contribute to the fight against rural poverty," he said.

Alhaji Dauda said the programme, which would cover all ecological zones including the coastal and northern savannas, would bring on board traditional authorities, land owners and metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in terms of local design, implementation and benefit sharing.

He announced that under the initiative from 2010 to 2011, 100 district assemblies would be covered in both on-and-off reserves areas with each assembly employing 300 workers for the plantation programme thereby creating 30,000 jobs within the period. "By the end of 2011, more than 51,000 jobs would be created in all the 170 assemblies," he added. The Minister said the initiative was to develop a sustainable forest resource base that would satisfy future demand for industrial timber and enhance environmental quality thereby relieving pressure on the existing natural forests. The immediate objective, he said, was to increase the tree cover of the country through massive recruitment of reforestation gangs to improve environmental quality, reduce the wood deficit situation and provide avenues for the country to tap the emerging benefits from climate change markets for carbon sequestration. Alhaji Dauda said to overcome the wanton resource degradation, the Ministry had no alternative than to resort to radical resource conservation such as greater efficiency of resource use - conversion of 35 per cent timber waste into value added products - promotion of resource utilisation through incentives, policy and legislative reforms and enforcement. 3 Nov. 09