The Government Assurances Committee of Parliament has expressed strong disapproval towards the Lands Commission for its inability to furnish data on public lands and their usage over the years, highlighting a significant lapse in accountability and transparency.
The Committee emphasizes that access to this data is crucial in combating fraudulent practices, such as the illegal registration of public lands as private properties.
However, despite persistent requests over the past two years, the Lands Commission has failed to provide the necessary documents, as noted by Committee Chairman Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa during their sitting on July 31.
“If this data is put together and provided, it will help all of us. These instances of government lands being registered as private lands and the fraud that is going on at the Lands Commission, as exposed by the Soul Enquirer, the only way to stem this, to prevent this, to forestall this, is to have the data, to put the data together.
“That is why I am clear in my mind that there are elements at the Lands Commission who don’t want the Ghanaian people to have this data.” He said
Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor, responded to the Government Assurances Committee’s request for data on public lands and their utilization. He explained that providing the information is a challenging task due to the Commission’s historical manual processes and the enormity of the task.
“The Lands Commission for all these years has been operating manually and it is just recently that we have started making efforts to digitise the records of the Lands Commission.
“The information I have from the Commission since I gave them the instructions to compile this list is that compiling the list from the 16 regions of the Lands Commission across the country from 1993 to now is an extraordinary undertaking and therefore they have not been able to put it all together as yet.
“And so I am unable to provide it now, but there is work in progress.” He stated
