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Stop public lands sale…President orders govt institutions

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has ordered government institutions to stop the sale of public lands with immediate effect.

“No public institution should deal in, grant, or allocate any land without the express approval of the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources acting with my consent.

“The days when public lands were literally dissipated without regard to the public interest are over,” President Akufo-Addo said when he inaugurated the Board of the Lands Commission at the Jubilee House in Accra yesterday.

The 25-member board has Mr Alex Nii Kweite Quaynor, a nominee of the President as its chairman with Mr James Ebenezer Dadson, the Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, and Daasebre Osei Bonsu II, from the National House of Chiefs as members

Others are Mr Anthony Forson, Jnr, President of the Ghana Bar Association; Mr Jonathan AlloteyAbbosey, Ghana Institution of Surveyors, Mrs Ama Kudom Agyeman, Bono East Region; Dr Prosper Basommi Laari, North East Region, and Alhaji Mohammed Abdul-Haq, Upper West Region.

It also includes Ms. Yvonne Adoley Sowah, Greater Accra Region; Mr Kofi Dankwa Osei, Eastern Region; Mama Dzidoasi I, Volta Region; Nana Obonbo Sewura Lupuwura II, Oti Region and Mr Kwame Kwaasi Danso, Central Region.

Others are Dr Isaac Obirim Kofi Sagoe, Western Region; Mr Samuel Kofi Abiaw, Western North Region; Nana Nsuase Poku-Agyemang III, Ashanti Region; Mr Nicholas Lenin Anane-Agyei, Ahafo Region; Mr Isaac Kwadwo Amankwah, Bono Region, and Mr DubikYakubu Mahama, Northern Region.

The rest are Dr Alhaji Adams Sulemana, Savannah Region; Mr Jonathan Anaboro Angme, Upper East Region; Dr Kwadwo Yeboah, Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority; Rev. Kwadwo Nkrumah, National Association of Farmers and Fishermen; Mr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Environmental Protection Agency, and Benito Owusu-Bio, MP, Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources.

President Akufo-Addo noted that public lands were not vested in any government institution, adding that “public lands allocated to government institutions therefore remain public lands, vested in the President and managed by the Commission.”

“Indeed, the new Land Act prohibits the grant of any interest in public land, other than use rights, to any public institution,” he said.      

President Akufo-Addo urged the board to pursue aggressively, the digitisation of the records of the Lands Commission.

According to him, most of the reforms needed to build efficient land administration would be achieved if efforts were made to move away from manual registration to digital registration of lands.

“You must therefore work assiduously to ensure that this digitisation programme works. Our target is to ensure that title registration takes a maximum of one month, and I dare say, the Ghanaian people will assess the success of your tenure based on how far we achieve this objective,” he said.

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