Overlapping responsibilities cause of land litigations

Tamale, June 12, GNA - Dr. George Botchie, a research Fellow at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) on Monday said overlapping of responsibilities on the part of agencies responsible for land issues were the major causes of the various land litigations in the country.

He attributed the situation to the inadequate resources and logistics available for the agencies and that it was limiting them to carry out their responsibilities effectively.

Dr George Botchie expressed the concern when he presented a research paper on the land tenure and policy reform in the country in Tamale on Monday.

The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) conducted the research, carried in different phases.

The objective of the workshop was to discuss with participants the findings of the project and to solicit their views and inputs for the implementation of the land tenure and policy reform in Ghana. Dr Botchie said it was common to see land commissioners allocating land to people instead of the Survey Department doing so adding, "This is an overlap on the duties of the survey department."

"Lands Commissions, sometimes issue land titles to land owners, which in actual fact is the responsibility of the Stool Lands", he pointed out.

He called for streamlining of the functions of the agencies responsible for land issues so that roles and functions would be defined to minimise land litigations.

Mr. George Owusu an official of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) who also presented a paper on the changes in land access and rights as well as livelihoods said about 86 per cent of settlers patronise the use of land than the indigenes. He explained that while immigrant needed the land for development, the indigenes sold them for their survival and were not using the land for residential and developmental purposes.

He said this was as a result of the fact that the acquisition of land in peri-urban communities was based on the ability to pay and this was also not discriminatory to persons.

Mr. Owusu said land ownership and boundary disputes accounted for over 70 per cent of the peri-urban land conflicts, while 9.5 per cent accounted for multiple sales, encroachment 8.5 per cent, 6.9 per cent compulsory acquisition and chieftaincy accounted for 2.6 per cent of the conflicts relating to land.

He said these conflicts resulted in loss of revenue, high cost of land acquisition and in some cases double payment for the same piece of land and the delay in the processing of land documents. Mr. Owusu therefore, called on the government and its development partners to come out with policies for implementations to curb the numerous problems associated with the land tenure systems in the country.