Compiled by Alfred Adams
As part of efforts to ensure free land litigation between traditional rulers and land users, the government has instituted a Customary Land Secretariat through the Administrator of Stool Lands in the country.
Two traditional councils in the Western Region, who are to benefit from the Secretariat, are the Aowin traditional council and Atuabo traditional council respectively.
Delivering a speech at the inauguration of Aowin customary land secretariat, the Deputy Director of Stool Lands in-charge of operations, Mr. Patrick Amoah, said land as a natural resource is fundamental to the very existence of mankind.
This is because it is the basic resource that defines the existence of man. According to him, the way and manner in which we manage and administer our land resource will set the boundary for our development, if we were able to foster a prudent land management system.
However, the Deputy Director of Stool lands believes that: “we as nation have not been able to exploit the potential of our land resources for our socio-economic development due to the numerous problems associated with landadministration”.
The government has, therefore, launched the Ghana National Land Policy, which identified, among others, the multiplicity of land laws, indeterminate boundaries of customary lands, inadequate security of land tenure and weak land administration system fragmented institutional arrangements with weak capacity.
Lack of consultations with land owners in decision making for land utilization and management, intractable land disputes have serious challenges in the land sector, he added. These challenges he observed have shaken land administration to its foundation and ‘we are now experiencing unprecedented chaos in the land market arena, culminating into the emerging notorious phenomena of land guards with its attendant brutalities’.
Mr. Amoah said the problems of customary land administration, coupled with the desire of the country to develop into upper middle class income level, informed the Land Administration Project to bring on board the establishment of Customary Land Secretariat in the various customary land owning communities.
It will be promoted as part of the decentralization of land administration services for land owners and traditional authorities who were willing to make initial investment in office accommodation and basic office facilities under the ongoing land administration project.
This Secretariat must be ran and managed as a sustainable business entity which would deliver efficient and transparent services to all stakeholders.
Mr. Amoah, therefore, underscored the need for chiefs and people of Enchi to show ownership and commitment to the Secretariat to ensure its sustainability. The secretariat will help strengthening good governance in land administration at the local level which will help ensure tenure of security and for that matter the confidence for people to invest in the land, which will help alleviate poverty and accelerate socio-economic development, he added.
The acting president for Aowin traditional council and chief of Omanpe Nana Gyening II, said Nananom of Aowin would collaborate with the people, most especially tenant cocoa farmers who work on their lands to demarcate, register and make proper records on their lands.
He was grateful to the government for establishing, equipping and inaugurating the secretariat, and making it first in the region.
Delivering a speech on behalf of the District Chief Executive, Oscar Ofori Larbi, the District Environmental Health Officer, Mr. J.A Frimpong, said government was poised in delivering its promises to the good people in the country and appealed to all to help bring the better Ghana agenda to fruition.
The ownership and possession of land carry a social obligation to serve the larger community, and in particular the state shall recognize that the managers of public, stool, skin and family lands were fiduciaries charged with the obligation to discharge their functions for the benefit respectively of the people of Ghana.
Street naming exercise coupled with spatial development framework would help bring sanity into the system, he added.
MR. PARTRICK AMOAH CUTTING THE TAPE TO OFFICIALLY OPEN THE NEW SECRETARIAT, ASSISTED BY THE ACTING PRESIDENT OF AOWIN,NANA GYANING II
