Nii Boi Town lanlords commend government

THE Nii Boi Town Landlords and Landladies Association has appealed to the Lands Commission to expedite action on the regularisation of their land title deeds to enable them to obtain proper records on their lands.
The suburbs under the association are Nii Boiman, Fish Pond, South Petroluem, Chantan, Six to Six, Alhaji, Isreal, Lormnava, Nii Oworsika, Yellow House, South Tantra, Race Course and parts of Mile 7.
The Chairman of the association, Reverend Peter Addison, said at a press conference in Accra at the weekend that the Lands Commision had noted that the areas were numerous to the extent that it would be very laborious and time consuming for all property owners to appear at their office to regularise their land documents.
In view of that, he said, they had decided to bring the various suburbs together to form the landlords association to make the regularisation process easier for the commission.
The purpose of the press conference, among others,was to express their appreciation to the government for heeding to their earlier appeal, which led to the release of their lands for the commencement of the regularisation process.
Rev Addison said their intention was to also inform and enlighten all property owners in the affected areas about the government’s declaration.
He said for over 20 years they had been trying to register the lands they purchased from the chiefs, but were always informed by the Lands Commission that it was impossible to do so because the government had acquired the lands for a proposed Olympic Village Complex.
According to him, after failing for a long to develop the Olympic complex, they saw it necessary as property owners to appeal to the government to reverse the decree which acquired the lands. He added that after a series of correspondence between them and the government their efforts had yielded results.
Members of the association expressed their appreciation to the Lands Commission and the Town and Country Planning Department for their tremendous co-operation and assistance.
The government recently announced its decision to return a percentage of lands in Accra which the state had acquired for various development projects to their original owners.
It accordingly directed the Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines to prepare and submit proposals and modalities for consideration by Cabinet.
The gesture was in fulfilment of a promise made by President Kufuor to return part of those lands to the original owners.
The Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Mrs Esther Obeng-Dapaah, announced the decision when she met some custodians of Ga lands in Accra recently.
She said the move was to engender trust and co-operation between the state and land-owning groups, as well as promote the optimal use of land in Accra.
Mrs Obeng-Dapaah said the release of the lands was subject to the signing of a memoranda of understanding (MoU) between the ministry and the original owners.
The lands to be released are at Mpehuasem at East Legon, which was acquired for the Accra Training College; the Ogbojo site for the National Women Training Centre; the Adenta site for the West Africa Secondary School; the Kwabenya Ghana Atomic Energy Commission site; the Odorgonno Secondary School site at Awoshie and the Bank for Housing and Construction site at Madina.
She said some of the factors Cabinet considered before issuing the directive were the level of encroachment on the lands, the extent of state development on the lands, potential future needs of the state and the current value of the lands as against the compensation assessed at the time of acquisition by the government.
Following that, she said the ministry embarked on processes, including the retrieval of relevant documents, site and boundary identification, surveying and consultation with key stakeholders.
“The ministry met with the chiefs and elders of La, Adenta, Ogbojo, Mpehuasem and the Numo Nmashie family,” she said, stressing that the government had agreed with the landowners that the portions to be released would be in lieu of compensation for the portions to be retained by the government.
Mrs Obeng-Dapaah acknowledged the fact that that initiative would help address the problems associated with compulsory acquisition, which was one of the major challenges confronting the effective administration of land in the country.
She said the lands to be released had been divided into two categories, with category one including lands that had not been fully encroached upon and over which the state had substantial infrastructure.
Under that category, she noted, the state was retaining portions of the lands for public purposes and on the average it was returning up to 50 per cent of the lands acquired by the state.
Category two comprised lands that had been totally encroached upon, either by the owners or trespassers.
“These are lands which had, prior to the acquisition, been acquired by individuals who lost their rights due to the acquisition but had not been compensated,” she said.
In accordance with that, she said the Survey Department had also been directed to undertake survey demarcation of the portions of lands to be released.
The minister said in that category, the Lands Commission would regularise the encroachment by giving the encroachers title documents to cover the parcels that they were occupying.
“The regularisation is subject to the payment of penalty to be decided by the Lands Commission. The rationale underlying the imposition of the penalty is to raise funds to pay compensation to those who have lost their rights as a result of the acquisition,” she said.
Some of the heads of clans present at the conference were, however, not happy with the portions of lands to be released.
They also complained about the procedure for regularisation under category two of the lands to be released.
They contended that some of the government’s documents during the time of acquisition did not tally with what they had and were of the view that the government needed to prepare a comprehensive report on the documents to tally with what they had before they went in for regularisation.