The Ghana Institute of Land Surveyors has called on government to immediately commit funds to support the Boundary Commission to begin demarcation and delimitation processes of the country’s maritime lines with neighboring Togo and Benin.
The Institute is raising the issue on the back of the just ended maritime dispute between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire where the Special Chamber on Saturday, September 23 ruled in favour of Ghana as far as the maritime boundary dispute between the two countries was concerned.
The Chamber ruled unanimously that Ghana did not violate the rights of Cote d’Ivoire in exploring oil at the maritime boundary.
There is growing pressure on government to immediately define, document and sign all boundary agreements with neighboring Togo and Benin to avert similar dispute with the two countries.
Speaking to Class News, President of the Ghana Institute of Land Surveyors, Edwin Addo Tewiah said the Boundary Commission must be supported with enough funds to carry out that exercise.
“We’re asking government to support the Boundary Commission and the maritime boundary with funds so as to be able to do their activities. Having the boundaries demarcated brings a lot of economic benefits in terms of what we have within where we belong and vis-à-vis collaboration and cooperation with our neighbours,” he stated.
“So we only need to allocate funds to the various commissions and consultants to continue doing it so that we don’t wait till when there is a problem before we go and look for funds to do that. We need to respect all institutions we’ve set up and allocate funds to them…,” he added.