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Akufo-Addo has called for a total digitization of the Commission that will ensure and enable the registration of lands in a month.
Speaking at the swearing in ceremony of the new board of the Lands Commission, the President noted that his government will work assiduously to ensure efficiency at the agency.
He thus urged the new board to fix and upgrade the manual system at the Commission to a digital one.
“You must work assiduously to ensure that the digitisation programme works. Our target is to ensure that title registration takes a maximum of one month, and, I dare say, the Ghanaian people will assess the success of your tenure based on how far this objective is achieved,” he said.
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The President also reminded the new board that the Lands Commission is required, on behalf of the President, to manage public lands, and any other lands vested in the President by the Constitution or any other law.
“Additionally, the Commission is also meant to formulate and submit to government recommendations on national policy with respect to land use suitability or capability, and also advise on, and assist in execution of a comprehensive programme for the registration of title to land throughout the country.”
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President Akufo-Addo also expressed his displeasure with most of the challenges in the country’s land administration.
The challenges some of which include dishonest sales of lands, poor record keeping at the Commission, encroachment of public lands, and the fraudulent registration of land.
“For example, why should the same parcel of land be registered in the names of different people, when the same Lands Commission is responsible for registration? Why should documents or files submitted to the Lands Commission mysteriously disappear when the Lands Commission ought to be the chief custodian of such important documents? Why should it take years to register just a plot of land?” he asked.
The President opined it is only an effective land administration that can transform the economy and bring the much-needed development and prosperity to the country.
“Investors will be frightened away if they spend good money to acquire land as a major tool for production, only to realise that what they acquired is litigation that spans years and decades,” he stated.