CICOL School Stakeholders in Upper East on Land Rights and Administration

Pusu-Namongo (U/E), Oct. 31, GNA - The Civil Society Coalition on Land (CICOL) has organized a three-day workshop on Land Administration and Rights Issues in Ghana for its member organizations, partners and the Media drawn from the three Northern Regions at Pusu-Namongo in the Talensi Nabdam District, Upper East Region.

The CICOL is a network of Civil Society Organizations working and advocating equitable land tenure practices, policies and management in Ghana.

The goal of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of the participants to effectively advocate equitable access; transparency; accountability and fairness in dealing with land rights and administration for the marginalized and the poor in policy formulation.

In an address, the Chairperson of CICOL, Ms Franciska Issaka said the implementation of the Land Administration Project (LAP) and the Customary Land Secretariat had necessitated the need to deepen the knowledge of CICOL member partners and the Media to get involved in monitoring and giving feedback on emerging issues to be incorporated in the policy formulation.

Mrs Nana Ama Yirrah, Executive Director of Community Land and Development Foundation, Member of COCOL, stressed the need for people acquiring land to look beyond the physical structure of land and go through the necessary processes of acquiring it by getting all the documents needed.

Mrs Yirrah explained that in situations where people acquired land from individuals without ensuring to get the entire necessary documents processed, often caused problems that could lead to confrontations with other interested parties.

She also advised that people who wanted to buy land from others who had acquired it and wanted to resell it to study the lease on the piece on the land properly and to contact the land agencies to cross-check their land document before purchasing it.

She noted that to reverse the complications usually associated with the Deeds System of acquiring land which was very cumbersome; the Government had introduced the land title methods that was operating in the Greater Accra Region and parts of the Ashanti Region and would soon be extended to other parts of the country.

She said the system would help to curtail the multiple sale of land, bureaucracy and other problems associated with acquisition of land and urged people to patronize the land title registration system in their own interest to protect their acquisitions.

Mr Samuel Nortey Quaye, Programme Officer of Land for Life, also a Member of CICOL based in Accra, advised people who had interest to acquire land to do a through research to find out whether the person selling the land to them was the property owner and had the right to sell the land and to also find out whether the land had not been sold out.

Mr Quaye noted that Government and stakeholders in land had realised the complications often associated with the acquisition of land and that was why they were coming out with a lot of interventions including the Customary Land Secretariat, the LAP and Title Registration of land among other things to curtail the problem.

He warned that it was illegal under the laws of Ghana for any person to grant a piece of land of which he had no title to another person and also to give a particular piece of land to more than one person. He said such an action constituted a second degree felony in the statutes of Ghana.

The Participants were taken through topics including introduction to Land Concept; Conceptual Understanding of Rights and Interest in Land; Land Rights and Interest in Land: Societal Linkages and Practices; Overview of the legal and regulatory Framework Governing Rights and Interest on Land in Ghana.

The Participants commended the organizers for the programme and said it had really helped to broaden their knowledge on Land Rights and Administration and would benefit them in their field of work.

The Programme was facilitated by Mrs Yirrah and Mr Quaye.

GNA