Pilot project on systematic land title registration begins in Kumasi

Kumasi, June 25, GNA - A pilot project to assess the feasibility of the "Systematic Land Title Registration", which seeks to remove bottlenecks a nd streamline the country's land administration, has taken off in Kumasi. It is being undertaken by managers of the Land Administration Project (L AP) of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources in partnership with the GEO-Environs Consult and Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) of t he Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) as consultants. The six-month project is being carried out at Patasi North and South, So uth and North Suntreso, Ridge, Denyame and Nhyiaeso.

The project involves an orderly system of registering title to land in a

"property by property, block by block, section by section and district by

district manner" to cover an entire area. This reduces the cumbersome procedure where applicants registering their titles have to move from one agency to the other. Ms Rebecca Sittie, acting Director of the Land Registration Division of Lands Commission told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the idea behind th e system was to ensure that the state guaranteed the registered title and t hus stops others from claiming that same piece of land. She said under the pilot phase, more than 2,000 land owners were expecte d to be registered and issued with land title certificates. Land owners, she said, would be required to submit photocopies of their entire land documents to the field team, who would visit their houses aft er measurement of the boundaries of their property and buildings in the proj ect area had been taken.

Ms Sittie said once registered, an owner of land would be in an ideal position to sell all or some of his all her property as potential buyers were increasingly expecting land to be registered before buying to avoid litigation. She added that it also gives the land owner greater certainty and securi ty about what he or she owns. Ms Sittie called on land owners to cooperate with LAP to ensure the succ ess of the exercise since the Land Title Registration law requires all proper ty owners to register their titles when an area is declared a registration district.