Scrap obsolete land laws - Kasanga

Accra, Sept. 6, GNA - Professor Raphael Kasim Kasanga of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi on Wednesday called for the spelling out of functions and limitations among stakeholders of the Land Administration Project to bring about efficiency, effectiveness and accountability in its administration processes.

Speaking at a review workshop on "Good Governance in Land Tenure/ Administration Systems in Ghana," Prof. Kasanga said most of the land laws currently in use were at variance with the Constitution and hence the need to resolve the legal contradictions.


He cited the Administration of Land Act 1962(Act 123), the State Lands Act 1962 (Act 125) and the Public Conveyance Act 1965 (Act 302) saying they were obsolete and needed to be scraped.


"Their compulsory land acquisition and compensation provisions are at variance with section 20 of the 1992 Constitution as well as the basic tenets and principles of good governance," he said.


The review workshop was organised by the Centre for Democratic Development Ghana (CDD) and supported by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).


Prof. Kasanga, a Former Minister, said the basic principles of good governance including accountability, equity and transparency were not considered in the formulation and implementation of land laws.


"This has resulted in the numerous land and governance problems," he said.

He cited some of the problems resulting from compulsory land acquisition as landlessness and homelessness due to the use of State powers and laws.


Prof. Kasanga said the establishment of the Customary Land Secretariat was in the right direction and called for the spelling out of the relationship between the Customary Land Secretariat and the land sector agencies.


He said the setting up of special lands courts to deal with land cases would go a long way to improve land administration generally. He said support infrastructure, training, remuneration for all land sector agencies including the traditional authority and their committees was important if corruption were to be eliminated.


Prof. Kasanga called for Government's support and commitment as well as support from donors, nongovernmental organisations and the civil society for the success of the reforms processes, for the concept of good governance in land administration.


Mr Eric Boateng, Head of Programmes CDD, expressed the hope that the focus of the workshop would lie in the definition of best practices for addressing governance issues in a tenure pluralism setting. He said the issue of land guards, compensation for land acquired by Government from indigenes and double land sales, most often by legal persons, could all be attributed to poor land administration with little or no regard for good governance.