Ensure transparency in land management – Land Officer
Acting Northern Region Stool Lands Officer, Franklin Oppong-Obiri, has called for more transparency in customary land administration to cut out corruption.
He said that explained the establishment of the Customary Land Secretariats (CLSs), under phase two of the Land Administration Project (LAP) sought to achieve.
Mr Oppong-Obiri, speaking at the opening of a three-day workshop on the CLSs, said there should be fair access to land and security of tenure and called on chiefs to show interest and get actively involved in setting up these secretariats.
The CLSs would serve as specialized offices, providing land delivery services to indigenous communities – information on land availability to prospective developers, keep custody and maintain up-to-date records on land transactions, offer advisory and technical support services.
They would additionally, create awareness about land ownership rights, land use and gender issues in land management.
The programme is being organized by the Civil Society Coalition on Lands (CICOL) with technical support from the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL).
It has brought together the media, focal persons of CICOL and other stakeholders in the land administration sector to build their capacity to effectively advocate equitable access, transparency, accountability and fairness regarding land rights and administration issues.
About 80 per cent of the country’s land area of 238,539 square kilometres is privately-owned and managed under customary tenure.
Mr Oppong-Obiri said the absence of clearly defined records and documents was creating land tenure insecurity.
He gave the assurance that the OASL would continue to engage stakeholders for the successful implementation of the LAP to improve land titling, registration, valuation, land use planning and land information system.
Nana Afrakoma Dufie II, Queen of Mampong, urged civil society organizations to be supportive of the LAP to re-engineer the land administration system to prevent land disputes.
Mrs. Lilian Bruce, Coordinator of CICOL, said they would be discussing “codification and ascertainment of customary laws”, “systematic demarcation of rural parcels” and “documentation of land rights” and “processes and modalities for establishing CLSs”.
Source: GNA