Accra’s National Lands Conference was launched by President Akufo-Addo, who tasked the Lands Commission with ensuring its full digital transformation.
Traditional leaders, lawmakers, the judiciary, academics, civil society organizations, and others involved in the management and administration of lands in the nation are among the participants in the four-day national conference, which is being held under the theme “Leveraging National Land Policy, Legislation, and Institutional Capacity towards Sustainable Socio-Economic Development.” Participants will discuss how to use land policy and legislation for socio-econ
The Department of Land Economy at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), COLANDEF, and the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, with assistance from GIZ and the German Cooperation, organized the Conference.
The President praised the Lands Commission for moving some of its services online while speaking at the Conference on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, at the Accra International Conference Centre. However, he said it is still unacceptable that the Commission still runs largely manually in this technologically advanced era.
We are unable to provide effective land administration if land documents must be manually processed. Therefore, we must move quickly to implement the digitalization agenda and make sure that the Commission fully adopts digital technology, the President remarked.
He emphasized the significance of land for socioeconomic growth. He claimed that almost all human activities take place on land and that 90% of people in our country depend on it in some way for their living. The President claims that as a result, the government gave the Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036), which had been in the draft stage for more than twenty (20) years, top priority.
The President claimed that despite numerous interventions over the years, particularly the Land Administration Project (LAP), the nation’s land administration continues to face numerous difficulties.
In order to ensure that we produce an effective and efficient land administration, he therefore urged stakeholders to cooperate. Act 1036, he claimed, offers a solid platform for establishing a reliable and effective land administration thanks to its numerous inventive features.
He promised that the government would work with all interested parties to ensure that the land administration was appropriate for the situation.
The land conference is the first of its kind in the history of the nation, according to Hon. Samuel A. Jinapor, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources and Member of Parliament for the Damongo Constituency. It aims to provide policy direction for land administration through wider discussions.
He claimed that although the Land Policy of 1999 is still important, it does not address the new problems brought on by infrastructure and technological growth.
He lamented the numerous issues with land administration in the nation, such as conflicting legal rulings, but asserted that the Ministry and the Lands Commission were cooperating to address these issues through interventions like online searches, the use of drones for surveying, and decentralization of land services.
In order to deliver “a robust and effective land administration, which will reject the typical inefficiencies, fraud, and delays, and which will be rooted on the principles of transparency and integrity,” he said the Ministry will continue to cooperate with the Lands Commission and all stakeholders.
According to Mr. James Dadson, Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, the goal of the conference is to provide a forum for the discussion of policy alternatives and experiences in order to generate strong levels of ownership of interventions and advance effective land administration in Ghana.
He acknowledged and thanked the President, the Minister of Lands and his deputies, and all other partners for their support, saying he had no doubt that with the selection of resource persons guiding discussions at the conference, they would bring their expertise to bear and ensure that realistic recommendations for efficient land administration were made.
In order to ensure that the country’s land economy takes its proper place in the government’s transformation plan, he urged everyone to engage fully in the conference. In his opinion, “If we get it right with lands, we will undoubtedly get it right with all other sectors.”
It is anticipated that the Conference, which started on Tuesday and ends on Friday, will provide a series of proposals for tackling the numerous issues with land administration in the nation.