Public Agenda (Accra)
Selorm Amevor
10 October 2008
The Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines in accordance with Cabinet Directives has announced the release of portions of state acquired lands in Accra to the original owners.
According to the Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Ms. Esther Obeng-Dappah, the move is to engender trust and cooperation between the state and land owning groups and to promote the optimal use of land. The move is also in fulfillment of a promise made by President Kufour to return part of those lands to their original owners.
This comes as refreshing news for many land owners in Accra who for many years have been battling with government over lands they claim have not been used for the purpose for which they were acquired.
Some land owners in Accra earlier this week issued a statement in which they gave the government an ultimatum to release their lands or face a campaign to make the government unpopular.
Ms. Obeng-Dappah announced that the areas where lands would to be released include, East Legon(Ogbojo, Mpehuasem),Adenta, Kwabenya ,Madina,Nungua, Weija, Sowutoum, Aplaku, Weija (Botianor) and Achimota (Mile 7).
She indicated that the lands to be given to the original owners have been divided into two categories namely; lands that have been encroached upon and over which the state has substantial infrastructure and those that have been encroached upon either by the owners or trespassers.
The Sector Minister who announced this in Accra said that for the category of lands that have been fully encroached upon and over which the state has substantial infrastructure the state is retaining portions of those for public purposes and on the average would return up to 50 percent of the lands.
For that reason, she said the Survey Department has been directed to undertake survey and demarcation of the portions of lands to be released and the affected areas under this category are East Legon (Mpehuasem) , East Legon (Ogbojo) , Adenta , Kwabenya and Madina.
According to Ms. Dappah, for lands which have been totally encroached upon either by the owners or trespassers the lands Commission has been mandated to regularize the encroachment by giving encroachers Title Documents to cover the parcels that are being occupied.
"The regularization is subject to the payment of penalty to be decided by the Commission. The rationale underlying the imposition of the penalty is to raise funds to pay compensation for those who have lost their rights as a result of the acquisition and the Commission has been directed to prepare the modalities for regularizing the encroachment," she added.
She indicated that in considering the issue, Cabinet considered factors such as the level of encroachment on the land, extent of state development , extent of undeveloped land available , potential future needs of the state and the current value of the land as against compensation assessed at the time of the acquisition.
Following that, her outfit embarked on processes, including retrieval of relevant documents , site and boundary identification , surveying and consultation with key stakeholders.
The Minister further said that in ensuring a smooth process they met with the chiefs and elders of La , Adenta , Ogbojo , Mpehuasem and Numo Nmashie family during which the government agreed with the land owners that the portions to be released would be in lieu of compensation for the portion to be retained by government.
"The programme of the Ministry is that the MOUs would be concluded between the Ministry and the affected land owning groups and then demarcation would be completed by the Survey Department before the land owners take possession of the lands," she said.
Most of the representatives of the various land owners expressed mixed feelings about the exercise since there are numerous problems that need to be solved before those lands can be retained to the them.
The Head of Family of the Odantow larger Family at Teshie , Kwabenya and others , Mr. Theodore Tetteh Mensah indicated that the portion of land being released to the family was inadequate, considering the quantum of land that was taken over by government.
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