Land ownership is a challenge in Upper West - Minister

Wa, Aug. 21, GNA - Mr. Henry Ford Kamel, the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, has said land ownership by families had been a major challenge facing land management in the Upper West Region. He said there were many small holdings with several owners and this required proper management since many families had not yet demarcated their lands.

Mr. Kamel said this when he inaugurated a 16-member Upper West Regional Lands Commission in Wa on Thursday with Mr. Hudu Siita as its chairman.

He appealed to members of the commission to provide the necessary framework and modalities for surveying and demarcating lands and to ensure that the rights of the vulnerable were catered for and protected. He said with the establishment of a Land Registry for the region, the commission must educate landowners to register their lands to help improve security of tenure and attract investors.

Mr. Kamel said it had been government's intention to return lands acquired by the state which were no longer needed. "This will be done on case by case basis", he said and urged the Regional Lands Commission to assist the process by beginning to compile data on lands occupied by the state agencies in the region. Mr. Kamel said land issues would continue to be an obstacle to national development if the bottlenecks associated with its administration were not removed. Mr. Kamel said with the new lands reform, the commission was responsible for all issues involved in land administration but the reform alone would not be able to change but those involved in its implementation.

Mr. Kamel said people expected a stress-free process for registering land and that members of the Regional Lands Commission should work hard to help reduce the bureaucracy, inefficiencies and frustrations of the public.

Mr. Kale Caesar, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, said the importance and limitation of land had over the years created conflicts among individuals, families groups, communities and nations. He said many communities in the region were rural but more and more of them were becoming urbanized because of the creation of new districts and called for proper demarcation of land boundaries to avoid conflicts.

Mr Caesar said 456 people registered their lands in the Wa Municipality in 2007 and the number increased to 523 people in 2008.