Ghana needs major land reforms — Ambassador Cretz

The outgoing United States Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Gene Cretz, has called for major land administration reforms in the country to help attract more investors into the country.

“Ghana needs a major land reform to make investors have access to litigation-free lands to undertake projects, that will impact the economy positively,” he said.

Answering questions from a selected number of journalists in his last media encounter at the US embassy in Accra last Tuesday, Mr Cretz, who is ending his three-year duty tour in the country, was of the firm view that should the land administration reforms be fully carried out, it will provide investors with additional confidence to do more business in the country.

Mr Cretz who was sharing his thoughts about what can be done to attract more investors into the country, said the ownership structure of lands in the country made it difficult for investors to safely lease lands to undertake projects and noted that should the challenge persist, it will be a major disincentive for investors.

Challenges with present system

In his piece titled Reforms of Ghana’s Land tenure System and published in 2003, Dr Kwame Asumadu,the Director at Asumadu & Associates, said there existed a myriad of customary arrangements, combined with some inconsistencies in the procedures for deed and title registration, a situation which made it extremely challenging for potential investors to acquire large parcels of land for large-scale economic projects that had the potential to transform the economy.

Although it is not impossible for the investors to access land to do what they intend, the present situation is frustrating and more of a disincentive.

This is particularly the case where the activity has a long economic gestation period.

There are additionally different traditional ownership structures; clan, family or chieftaincy ownership of lands in some cases, that require many negotiations with a large number of groups purporting to be titleholders.

These kinds of negotiations even become more murky when the land size involved is big or the different interest groups realise the potential buyers are foreigners.
In such instances, negotiations are often overly protracted, cumbersome, frustrating, and expensive and easily discourage the investors.

Some economic impacts

The current land tenure system constitutes a serious disincentive to investment in Ghana’s economy.

Although there are many large tracks of land in many parts of the country, these are not utilised for large scale commercial farming to help meet local food consumption and for export.

In neighbouring countries, large scale farming is more prevalent because of the flexible nature of land acquisition and that is helping their economies.

In the area of housing, traditional rulers and land owners refuse to release lands at cheaper cost to help deal with the housing deficit. As a result many are not able to buy or lease lands for such projects and the impact has been the large number of people without homes.
The lack of Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) is also a result of the land tenure system and in an economy where such investors are heavily relied on, their absence remains a challenge to the economy.

Way forward

In spite of the challenges, Mr Cretz said he was hopeful that once that was resolved, the investors would pour in more than anticipated.
He said American investors were expected in the country in the coming months to do business in many other areas including oil and gas and the energy sector.

Recounting his achievements and observations over the period of his tenure he said “I am partucularly pleased over the last three years to see greater commercial engagement by U.S. companies here in Ghana, a sign that we are succeding at building bridges between American and Ghanaian companies and that these relationships are prospering”

Mr Cretz mentioned companies such as Caterpiller and Cummins which he said continued to contribute to the development and construction of Ghana’s infrastructure “while iconic U.S. companies such as Hess, Kosmos, Halliburton and others are partnering with Ghana to help take advantage of the abundant offshore petroleum reserves that will fuel economic growth in the coimng years.”