The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is in discussions with the private sector and other stakeholders to undertake a comprehensive land administration reform to transform operations of the Lands Commission.
Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Benito Owusu-Bio, explained that it was a long term approach in making the Commission more effective and efficient in its operations.
He was speaking during a sod-cutting ceremony for the construction of a Lands Commission District office in Tema yesterday.
He explained that the construction of the Tema District office forms part of government’s decentralisation drive in the land administration, adding that it was also in line with the Sustainable Development Goal 1, which seeks to promote control and access to land services.
He said the ultra-modern single storey office building with a state-of-the-art facility, which is expected to be completed in 12 months, would enable effective land service delivery.
The Tema office, he noted, was the beginning of many district office complexes to be established in some selected districts across the country, and would deepen the integration process by accommodating all the four divisions of the Commission.
He said land administration in the country was undergoing several phases in a bid to streamline the process that governs land acquisition, its management and disposal.
In a quest to improve service delivery and to address challenges of land administration in Ghana such as manual nature of land records, inadequate office infrastructure, poor working environment and limited staff capacity, the Lands Commission has embarked on a number of initiatives, including the digitisation drive and automate records, registration processes of the commission, enactment of the New Lands Act ( Act 1036), recruitment of some 757 new staff between 2020 and 2021, and the establishment of offices in the six newly created regions.
Board Chairman of the Commission, Alex Quaynor, expressed his gratitude to the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) for the land space to build the new office.
He said the commission has already embarked on a number of infrastructural projects to improve service delivery, adding that it was focusing on effectively meeting the needs of clients.
James Dadson, acting Executive Secretary of the Commission, said that in the bid to eliminate the phenomenon of transporting documents from the Tema office to Accra, the new building would accommodate all the four divisions of the Commission to ensure operational procedures done in the Tema District was fully completed.
“The significant thing about this is when we finish this building; people will no longer have to go to Accra to transact any business with regards to land registration. All the services, from start to finish, will take place here in Tema,” he added.
BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS