Sanction officials who lease public lands -Asantehene

THE Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has decried the practice whereby statutory bodies lease public lands for private development.

He said lands earmarked for public use are leased to private developers by some officials of the Town and Country Planning Department, the Stool Lands Administration, Lands Commission and the Land Title Registry.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu, who expressed the concern in Kumasi at the weekend when he received a land certificate of the Manhyia Palace and its environs from the Deputy Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Mr Clement Eledi, called for the sanctioning of such officials to serve as a deterrent to others.

The land certificate replaces the lease system.

Otumfuo observed that officials of these statutory bodies, who have no land of their own, manage to lease lands earmarked for schools, car parks, markets and recreational grounds, among others, to private developers, at the expense of the larger society.

He said the development of such public places has caused a lot of inconvenience to residents of urban areas, including Kumasi, and has created congestion and traffic jams.

The Asantehene also expressed concern about the indiscriminate manner in which private developers have put up structures at the Kumasi Railway Station, with the connivance of officials of the Ghana Railway Company (GRC).

He said the rate at which structures are springing up at the railway station, with the active supervision of the GRC and the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, must not be tolerated.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu also touched on the irresponsible manner in which private developers are putting up structures on waterways and other areas in the Kumasi metropolis.

Mr Eledi gave the assurance that the government will not change land ownership pattern in Ashanti and that the laws and practices of the region, with regards to land ownership, would remain the same.

He said the government has confidence in the Land Title Registration Law passed in 1986 because it acts as a weapon to minimise land disputes in the country.

He said the aim of the government is “to see to the elimination of landguards and despondency, which result in a prospective landowner losing his investment because of insecure title.”

Mr Eledi said the government will continue to support agencies which administer the land by helping them to overcome their logistic problems and obtain adequate funds and equipment.