World Bank provides $50 million for LAP Phase Two

Accra, Dec. 8, GNA -The World Bank is committing $50 million to the second phase of Ghana’s Land Administration Project, which seeks to consolidate and strengthen land administration and management systems for efficient and transparent land service delivery.

The funding is to be boosted by $15 million dollars from other development partners to help in the implementation of the programme.

Mr Charles Annor-Frempong, Senior Rural Development Specialist of World Bank, said the bank was satisfied with the outcome of the first phase of the project, necessitating the commitment of additional fund.

Speaking during a meeting with the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr Annor-Frempong said the bank knew from the initial phase of the project that the effort to reform the land sector was not going to immediately deal with all the challenges in the sector hence the support for the second phase.

There are four components to the project. The first component will support the completion of land law reforms, preparation of regulations and collaborate with the judiciary in establishing new land courts; the second component will improve transparency and reduce time and cost of delivering service through a re-engineering and decentralisation of business process and automation.

The other components include support for the preparation of base maps and other spatial products to support land transactions and street addressing system and the development of capacity requirements for land administration service provision as well as project management.

Mr Annor-Frempong said there was the need for commitment from all stakeholders for the reforms to yield the necessary outcome, saying land had a critical role to play in socio-economic development.

Mr Mike Hammah, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, said the second phase of the project would help to extend land title registration to property, which would allow individual interest in land to be protected and guaranteed by the State.

Besides, it would give the owner greater certainty and security about what he or she owns.

He said when the land title registry was performing efficiently, it would help unearth the hidden potential of debt capital in the country’s development process and allow individual owners to access funds using their property.