Modern survey equipment procured for LAP

Busua (W/R) July 17, GNA - The Government has procured modern survey machinery and equipment to enhance the operations of the Land Administration Project (LAP), Dr. Odame Larbi, Director of the project has stated.

He said very soon the courts would be provided with equipment including computers to accelerate the judiciously dispensation of more than 30,000 land cases pending before the courts.

This, he said, would lead to the reduction in the spate of land litigations and conflicts in the country.

Dr. Larbi was speaking at a workshop for Paramount and Divisional Chiefs from the seven Traditional Councils in the Western Region. Also present were representatives of the six land sector institutions and stakeholders in land administration at Busua near Takoradi.

Traditional councils represented were the Wassa-Fiase, Denkyira, Aowin, Sefwi, Ainyinase and Basake who share boundaries with Wassa-Amenfi. They discussed the role of the traditional councils in the proposed boundary demarcation exercise, which formed part of the first of the three-phased 15-year project to evolve an efficient land administration system to forestall litigation and fraudulent practices in the sale or lease of land.

Dr. Larbi advised chiefs and other landowners not to remove or destroy existing demarcation pillars and to respect court and other judgements on land litigations.

The Government would support the various traditional councils to establish customary land secretariats and to train land valuation officers, surveyors and other staff to man the secretariats. He said as part of the project, customary boundary demarcation offices had been established at Ejusu in the Ashanti Region and Wassa-Amenfi in the Western Region on pilot basis to be extended to other parts of the country.

Dr. Larbi appealed to chiefs and others whose lands were acquired for public projects by previous governments, but were not paid compensations to cooperate with the present administration to arrive at a compromise. This was because the Government would not be in the position to pay compensations for several thousands of hectares of land acquired previously.

Dr. Larbi mentioned the construction of the Akosombo Dam, which inundated lands of many traditional areas and also the 78,000 hectares of land acquired for the establishment of the Ghana Rubber Estates among others.

The participants expressed their support and cooperation to enhance the work of LAP and urged chiefs who had problems over boundaries with other traditional areas to iron out their differences before the demarcation exercise.

They admitted that land litigations was the bane of many traditional areas and the project was a step forward to bring sanity into land administration to enhance development. 17 July 05