Land Act 2020 a 'game changer' in land administration - President Akufo-Addo touts

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said the new Lands Act (1036) will help the bottlenecks in land administration and ensure a smooth and efficient land administration system.

Delivering the keynote address at the opening day National Lands Conference on Wednesday, December 7, 2022, President Akufo-Addo touted that the Land Act, 2020 will be a game-changer as far as land administration in the country is concerned.

According to the president, the Land Act, 2022 encapsulate all the various issues in the land administration regime and outlines legal ways of handling such issues.

"The Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036), provides a strong foundation for fashioning out a workable and efficient land administration. The Act has far-reaching provisions that if implemented, will go a long way to build the effective land administration we desire.

“Key among them, the establishment of Customary Land Secretariats to see to the management of stool, skin, family and clan lands, restrictions on large scale disposal of family and clans lands without the concurrence of the Regional Lands Commission, the power of the Commission to survey and demarcate land, the provision for electronic conveyancing, the detailed provisions for the compulsory acquisition of land including the payment of compensation, the management and use of public lands, and the provisions for devesting of vested lands.

“The Act, also, addresses the challenges associated with boundary demarcation and clarifies rights and interests in land, and persons with the capacity to alienate land. It provides stringent jail terms for various offenses related to land, such as vanguardism, falsification of records and fraudulent transactions in land administration,” he said.

Whiles commending the Lands Commission for tapping into the digitalization drive by the government to improve their services, President Akufo-Addo stressed the need for expedited actions towards a fully digital operation of land administration.

The president noted that the benefits of digitalization in the land sector are being realized and that the government through the Lands Commission will continue to tread the path of digitalization.

“I cannot conclude without mentioning the issue of digitalization. I must commend the Commission for the progress made in moving some of its services online. But in this age of technology, it is unacceptable that we still operate in a largely manual environment.

“We cannot deliver an efficient land administration if documents on land have to process manually. We must therefore expedite action on the digitalization agenda, and ensure that the Commission goes fully digital. As you go into technical discussions, it is my hope that this will be key on hour agenda,” he said.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Jinapor, on his part maintained that the conference provides an ideal platform for government to solicit ideas to improve land administration.

Samuel Abu Jinapor who is not unaware of the challenges in the sector said that the ministry will continue to work with the Lands Commission to create “a robust and functioning land administration, which will discard the usual inefficiencies, fraud and delays, and which will be anchored on the principles of transparency and integrity.”

The National Lands Conference which is themed, “Leveraging National Land Policy, Legislation and Institutional Capacity towards Sustainable Socio-Economic Development” draws stakeholders under one roof to deliberate on improving the sector.

The four-day summit is being organized by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Lands Commission, in partnership with the Department of Land Economy of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and COLANDEF, with support from GIZ and the German Cooperation.