Review auctioning of state lands - Lands Commission urged

The Lands Commission has been called upon to review the policy of auctioning state lands and to ensure that they are restricted prime areas with the proceeds going into poverty alleviation.

The Commission should also set up Special Division to manage land acquisition and to compensate original owners in the many cases of encroachment on state lands.

These were the recommendations of participants at a two-day roundtable discussion on land administration reforms at Agona Swedru in the Central Region.

It was organised by the Integrated Centre for Social Development (ISODEC), in collaboration with the UK Department for International Development for participants from non-governmental organisations, the academia, government institutions, and the National House and development partners.

They discussed "Tenure Security in Urban Housing", "Tenure Security in Rural Populations", "Women's Tenure and Customary Law", Public Lands and Public Services", "Land and Rights of Persons with Disability, Access, Shelter for Work and Family, Proximity to Services" and Migrants, Strangers and Modelling a Common Land Regime for ECOWAS."

The recommendations would be an input for the national consultations on land policy reform currently underway with the aim of managing lands and renewable resources in Ghana.

The recommendations read by Mr Sam Bosompem, of CIVITAS Ghana, recognised an urgent need for a coherent set of land laws incorporating state and customary interests, which should be applied uniformly in the country.

Participants noted with concern that the numerous problems of uncertainty of land title and costly litigation, which undermined development and social progress and called on the newly established Land Administration Project (LAP), which was at the forefront of land reforms, to give technical assistance to traditional authorities in the recording of land transactions in their localities.

They further urged that the LAP should sensitise chiefs and family heads to lead communities to change customary laws that had traditionally and historically excluded women from land ownership.

The participants commended the government for introducing a Bill in Parliament that provided accessibility of all public buildings to persons with disabilities.

They asked that provisions of the Bill were fully integrated in the LAP in the design, implementation and budgeting to solve the problem of persons with disabilities in acquiring land and accessing public buildings and services.

The participants pressed for the establishment Desks in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to provide access and prompt services to persons with disabilities and called for a network of organisations to lobby government and political parties for measures that advanced the rights of the disabled.

They noted with Ghana's current position of Chairman of ECOWAS and Executive Secretary of the ECOWAS, it should pursue sub-regional co-operation vigorously and to enact laws that addressed cross-border land use and settlement issues.

They recommended specifically laws that regulated the activities of trans-border herdsmen and a harmonisation of tax laws to prevent evasion and migration.

The interest of refugees and migrants should be considered in domestic legislation.

There should also be reciprocal law on rivers and water bodies across borders and to protect natural flora and fauna and endangered species, such as elephants whose habitats and movements cut across national boundaries, the participants said.