Legal scholar, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, popularly known as Kwaku Azar, has launched a scathing critique against the sale of public lands at prices far below market values, describing the practice as ‘theft baptised as policy.’

In a detailed post on his official Facebook page, the US-based law professor argued that undervaluing state properties for politically connected buyers constitutes 'willfully causing financial loss to the state’ and should be treated as a criminal offence.

“They say buying public land at a ridiculously low price is not necessarily a crime. That’s how the powerful baptize theft and call it policy. When you take land worth $1 million and pay $10,000, you haven’t made a smart deal; you’ve stolen the difference,” he stated.

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He likened such transactions to government overpayments on inflated contracts, such as the controversial DRIP Programme flagged by the Auditor-General, where equipment worth $40,000 was reportedly invoiced at $84,000.

“If overpaying is a crime, underpaying for public land should be too. It’s the same fraud just wearing different shoes,” he asserted.

Prof Azar lamented that public land allocations often benefit the politically powerful rather than ordinary citizens.

“Public land is not political loot. It belongs to all of us the nurse in Tarkwa, the teacher in Sefwi, the trotro driver in Madina. But when the allocation time comes, the call doesn’t go to Adwoa Agyeiwaa or the nkate cake seller in Mpraeso. It goes to the connected — ministers, MPs, CEOs, judges, financiers,” he indicated.

According to him, such practices have contributed to a distorted real estate market where lavish developments are built on privileges rather than productivity.

“Our real estate boom is not built on productivity. It’s built on privilege. Every underpriced acre is a subsidy for looting,” he said, adding that inflated property prices and rents are the ‘collateral damage’ ordinary workers suffer.

The law professor proposed a legal reform to criminalise undervalued state land sales.

“No public land shall be sold, leased, or transferred for less than fair market value,” he wrote, insisting that both the public officials who authorise such deals and the private individuals who benefit should be held jointly liable.

He described the misuse of state lands as a betrayal of constitutional trust.

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“The constitution vests all public lands in the President in trust for the people of Ghana. That trust is sacred. When a public officer sells land below market value, he betrays that trust,” he added.

Prof Azar concluded with a blunt moral reminder: “Theft with a title deed is still theft. When the people’s land becomes a playground for the powerful, democracy itself becomes the casualty.”

MRA/AE

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