We’re cleaning land management system - Lands Commission assures
The Chairman of the Lands Commission, Alex Quaynor, has said that his outfit was putting measures in place to cleanse the land management system in the country.
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In line with that, he said the commission had created a corporate portal for establishments in the land value chain as an interim measure to deal with some of the challenges in the sector.
"Currently, the portal is being piloted with the FNBBank.
When we set up the back-up, it will take us about three months to roll it out.
"The measure, which is in the interim, would serve as a springboard towards the holistic digitalisation of the entire commission,” the chairman added.
Event
The chairman was speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement on lands in Accra yesterday.
The meeting was organised by the Ghana Incentive-based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (GIRSAL).
The participants
The core objective of GIRSAL is de-risking agribusiness financing by local financial institutions to increase lending to the agricultural sector.
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Among issues discussed were ownership of land, consent to mortgage, lost or misplaced files and conflicting search reports.
The commission was also urged to step up its role in the validation of land title certificates and registration of lands for effective management of mortgages.
Police intervention
Mr Quaynor acknowledged the challenges in the sector and called on the police to double their efforts in arresting and ensuring the prosecution of people who dealt in false land documentation and other fraudulent land acquisition practices.
He also stressed the need for closer collaboration among stakeholders to deal with fraudsters who interfered with the work of the commission for their selfish gain.
Mr Quaynor said the commission was currently dealing with about 1,000 cases of fraud, adding that "we have been sued in many cases which we think should not have been so, but our lawyers are doing their best to handle them".
Land ownership
Responding to a question on ownership of lands, the chairman said the regime for searches had been changed and that the commission had within the last two years been working to re-engineer the process.
He said a land enterprise system will soon be established and the search system dovetailed into it after the commission had signed onto the system.
At the moment, the chairman said his outfit had engaged the services of a private company which was sorting its files and linking them digitally as part of measures to improve its work.
Objective
The Chief Executive Officer of GIRSAL, Kwesi Korboe, said: "The objective of the forum was to see how stakeholders could practically address challenges confronting financial institutions in their work with the commission.
He said even if they could not find solutions to all the bottlenecks, the meeting had, at least, given the participants some insight into the operations of the commission.