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Surveyors asked to put services at
municipalities and assemblies’ disposal
Accra, Aug 1,
Ghanadot/GNA-This year’s Annual Land Surveyors’ Seminar
organized by the Land Surveying Division of the Ghana
Institution of Surveyors (GhIS) has taken place in Accra,
with a call on members to endeavour to put their services at
the disposal of Metropolitan, Municipal and District
Assemblies.
Mrs. Esther Obeng-Dapaah, Minister of Lands, Forestry and
Mines, who made the call said this would enable the
Assemblies to embark on proper street naming exercises, to
enhance “our address codes and the postal delivery system.”
The two-day Seminar, which took place from July 30 to 31,
had “Managing Geo-Spatial Data to Enhance Democratic
Governance”, as its theme.
Mrs Obeng-Dapaah whose speech was read for her at the
opening ceremony, noted with satisfaction that in the area
of good governance, the assemblies would rely “on your
expertise for their day-to-day developmental activities,
especially in areas such as the collection of revenues and
effective developmental control.”
The Minister disclosed that in the provision of mapping and
surveying services, an estimated 100 companies in the
country alone generated an annual revenue to the tune of
about 1.5 billion dollars from geomatic-based activities.
She pointed out that geo-spatial data were produced on
continual basis by both the public and private sectors at an
unprecedented fast rate in the country.
However, the Minister was quick to add that unless policies
and procedures were formulated and implemented by the
custodians of these data to ensure their archival
preservation and continued availability to policy makers,
industrialists, researchers and natural resources managers,
among others, long-term access to the wealth of these data
would be compromised.
“Decisions on our economy, environment and society cannot
only be based simply on current or recent data, temporal
analysis is required to identify trends, evaluate impacts
and make informed decisions for democratic governance.”
Mrs Obeng-Dapaah stated that currently, government was
pursuing many policy initiatives, strategies and programmes,
to help eradicate poverty and improve the well-being of
Ghanaians.
“I have no doubt that Geographic Information System database
will be a valuable source of data to the State’s Planning
Strategy for both policy development and implementation.”
She pledged that her ministry would readily support the
efforts of members of GhIS in the management of geo-spatial
data, because, “some of the benefits accruing from these
endeavours are enormous.”
Mr. Edwin Addo-Tawiah, Division Chairman of GhIS, said as
major players in the road, building and land management
sectors of the national economy, surveyors “are to invest in
new equipment and technologies in the local and foreign
markets for effective and efficient production.”
Mr. Addo-Tawiah pointed out that since the work of a land
surveyor hinged on safety and security, the division was
designing land surveyors’ jackets for all qualified
surveyors to enable the public to readily and easily
identify who land surveyors were.
During the programme, members were taken through lectures
under topics including: “Land Records Management System for
Conveyance Notification, Discharge and Record Tracking”;
“Using Geographic Information System for Fire Fighting”;
“Land Tenure Facilitation Activity: The Land Surveyor and
Geo-Spatial Management” and “Multipurpose Cadastral System
as a Source for Spatial Data.”
GNA
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