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Increasing rates in human settlement
is disturbing- President
Accra, Nov 27, Ghanadot/GNA - President John Agyekum Kufuor
on Tuesday said the increasing rates in human settlements
without adequate infrastructure was disturbing, expensive to
manage and unsustainable in the long term.
"Most of the new settlements are just like dormitories where
everybody commutes daily to the city centre for business.
"This cannot continue. We must find mechanisms for ensuring
that the development of our towns and cities are well
coordinated to warrant the efficient functioning of the
settlements with businesses and social infrastructure well
integrated," he said.
President Kufuor said this in a speech read for him by Madam
Esther Obeng Dappah, Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines
at the first national land forum held in Accra.
The three-day meeting, which attracted about 300
participants including land experts, legal specialists,
official of public land sector agencies, traditional
authorities as well as representatives of the judiciary and
farmers associations among others, is on the theme,
"Securing Land Rights for Accelerated National Development".
It is being organised by the Land Administration Project
(LAP of the Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines (MLFM) in
collaboration with the Millennium Development Authority as
the climax of the series of Regional Land Forums organised
recently to collate public/stakeholder comments and views as
input for the proposed Consolidated Land Act.
President Kufuor said the high rate of population growth and
urbanisation was putting considerable pressure on the land
resources and it was important that nationals discussed land
as a national development issue, "so that, together we can
fashion out pragmatic and workable relationships between
land ownership, land tenure and land use, which will create
the needed balance in our cultural, social, economic and
political development."
He said the recent discovery of oil in commercial quantities
had started putting pressure on land in the coastal areas of
the Western Region.
"Similar pressure are expected to be put on land in the area
of the Brong Ahafo Region where the Bui dam is being
constructed," President Kufuor said.
He said a good land administration and tenure regime held
the key to poverty reduction and economic growth for the
country.
"The dynamics of land tenure and land rights, the
relationship between population growth and land right
evolution, and the competition between different land uses
demand that we take bold decisive actions to ensure that our
land resources are well managed for optimum returns," he
said.
President Kufuor said there was the need for an objective
analysis of the current land tenure situation, " assess the
continued efficacy of the customary system of land
ownership, its dynamism and adaptability to meet the growing
demands from the various users of the land.
"When we consider that the customary system of land
ownership had been able to support cocoa production over the
years for Ghana to be one of the leading exporters of cocoa,
then we cannot discount the customary system as outmoded.
He said nevertheless Ghanaians could also not say that the
customary system of landownership was without problems.
There were problems associated with boundary demarcation,
the clarification of rights and interests in land, who had
authority to alienate which right, he said.
President Kufuor said the traditional system of inheritance
where land was divided among surviving sons has led to
excessive fragmentation in some parts of the country,
leading to uneconomic land units.
"We must begin to consider how to turn these traditions
around in more beneficial manner, especially as land has
assumed more economic value and we can no longer treat it as
a non-tradable commodity," he said.
Mr Ahmed Bin Saleh, Chief Director, MLFM, in a welcome
address said some of the challenges confronting the
government in the land sector were the delicate balance
between custom, tradition and modernity.
"While we need not do away with our customary system of land
ownership, we have to fashion out how to improve upon it,
create certainty within it and modernise it so as to improve
security of tenure," he said.
He said the output from the forum would be used to review
the national land policy document and also prepare inputs
for a new Land Bill.
Odeneho Gyapong Ababio II, President of the National House
of Chiefs, who chaired the function said for a long time,
land issues had been handled piecemeal and on ad hoc basis
and it was important that consensus was reached to move the
nation forward.
GNA
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