Establish survey and mapping authority now

The purpose and urgent need to establish an authority such as a Survey and Mapping Authority of Ghana to advise the government on survey and mapping policies, undertaking of national land surveys and mapping, licensing of land surveyors and verification of survey plans  should be knocking strongly on the minds of those who cherish the welfare of this country.

The authority when established will also ensure the maintenance of up-to-date scientific data, maps and plans; geographic database and information system.

A national survey and mapping authority should by now be a national priority and parliamentary agenda for several reasons.  The Executive, through the Cabinet, Parliament and the Judicial Council should treat this as a national priority.

Ghana is contesting a land boundary claim with La Cote d’Ivoire. It is, first of all, about maritime land boundary and not oil deposit or exploitation as most Ghanaians have been made to believe.

Following the principle of “he who does not have cannot give” the Ivorians have placed the matter before the International Court initially for arbitration and now for adjudication.

The experience from Nigeria after the Bakasi Peninsula dispute with Cameroun and the immediate placement of the office of the Surveyor General of the Federation under the presidency by the Obasanjo government should be a lesson for Ghana. I am aware of the existence of a boundary commission in Ghana, but only God knows what they are doing.

The Geological Survey Department, which is now struggling for a status as an authority, has been calling for and presenting memos year after year to all governments, both past and present, who persistently refused to find the needed funds for the establishment of  seismic monitoring stations until one fine evening a text message went virile through mobile phones of an impending earthquake. Soon after the message, both educated and unlettered Ghanaians, scared of death, scrambled for open spaces.

Promptly, the Cabinet approved the release of funds and today we have up-to-date digital seismic monitors spread across the country to warn us.

Importance of survey

The Geological Survey Department, an institution of such national significance, is suffering the same fate as the Survey Department because we are waiting for the worst to happen in order to accord them their places in national development.

The next reason is the recent launch of the National Development Plan at which the current and two past Presidents of Ghana featured in the ceremony. Ghana, according to those who describe themselves as land tenure and policy consultants, is made up of a composite of public lands and Stool or Skin lands with an estimate of 20 per cent and 80 per cent respectively.

If you consider the fact that when government needs land for development, it takes the land it requires from Stool and Skin landowners by Acts of Parliament, and that majority of these Stools and Skins have indeterminate land boundaries, then common sense and principled logic should beckon us to act proactively. Every citizen has a right to land for whatever use, just like the State.

Another cogent reason is that Ghana has administrative regions together with municipal and district enclaves spelt out by legislative instruments (LI).

The boundaries of the regional, municipal and districts created are never demarcated and have continued to create tension among some MMDAs in their revenue collection efforts.

Some of their employees engage in fights because of the absence of the physical delineation of the boundaries. Is this not enough food for thought? If government institutions can fight over boundaries, why would individual citizens not fight too to protect their boundaries? 

The proposed Survey Authority of Ghana should, among other related purposes, promote standards in survey matters.

Historical perspective

The practice of Surveying in Ghana started with the mining institutions, of course, to establish concessions for the Queen of England.  The Survey Department was established in 1901 as the Gold Coast Mining Survey on the urgent request by Governor Major Mathew Nathan.

In early 1902, Captain F. Gordon Guggisberg joined the group. The Gold Coast Mining Survey concluded its work in 1907 when Major Guggisberg handed over to Governor Sir John Rickersgill Roger.

The good work done by this group and other vital survey data needed for development in the colony necessitated a more comprehensive survey outfit for the colonial government. Therefore in 1908, the Gold Coast Survey Department was established to replace the mining survey headed by Major F.G. Guggisberg to;

1) Continue mapping the concession in the colony

2) Produce maps of the colony.  This new department was assigned the responsibility for, among others, mapping major towns in the Gold Coast at a scale of 1:1250

3) Extend the responsibility to produce topographical maps covering the whole colony.

4) Develop and extend primary, secondary and tertiary level networks for road construction and other engineering construction works in the territory, an example being the railway network.

In about 1914, the Survey Department was temporarily closed down till late 1919, as all the serving staff were servicemen of the British Royal Regiment and had to go to war during the First World War.

On assumption of duty after the war, Brigadier General Sir F.G. Guggisberg was elevated from Surveyor General to the Governor of the Gold Coast. As a governor, he saw the importance of the establishment of the Survey Department for national development and brought it directly under his control.

The initial task of the Survey Department after the war was to put in place facilities for:

1) Employing already trained natives prior to the war to be road location and railway engineers

2) Establishing a Surveying Training School for the manpower needs of the colonial government.

3) Extension of the triangulation network with tertiary traverses to form the control basis for all framework surveys and mapping in the country on which all other surveys depend.

4) Grant licences to prospective qualified surveyors, both expatriates and locally trained, to undertake concession and cadastral surveys.

In the circumstances, the Survey Department was divided into four basic units:

i) The topographic branch for mapping and engineering surveys

ii) The examination branch for checking and scrutinising all surveys

iii) The cadastral branch – with cadastral branch instructions as guidelines for the survey of concessions and rivers and composite plans for court adjudication.

iv) The Drawing and Records Office for interpretation, drawing of field data and storage of all records on maps and plans in the country (Land Records Section)

After independence, there was an agitation for the separation of the Records Section from the Survey Department and that resulted in the creation of the Lands Department under the State Lands Act. 1962 (Act 125).

Out of the Lands Department, the Lands Commission was established under the Lands Commission Act, 1994 (Act 483).  The Lands Commission was in turn fragmented into Land Valuation Board, the Land Title Registry and the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands.

These divisions and separation of departments have resulted in the creation of the egoist leadership in these departments who have never acknowledged the need to collaborate and bring their respective professional competencies together for the good of the nation.

It is pertinent to note that the need for a national survey organisation for national development and in particular the security of the State, cannot be overemphasised. Such a national survey organisation has always been autonomous as is the practice in several other civilised countries.