Some dignitaries at the seminar
George Okwabi Frimpong, a member of the Licensed Surveyors Association of Ghana (LiSAG) has admonished people interested in securing land to engage the services of qualified Surveyors to avoid future negative repercussions.
Mr Okwabi Frimpong was speaking at the fifth “GNA-Tema Stakeholder Engagement and Workers’ Appreciation Day,” Seminar at the Tema Office of the Ghana News Agency which is a progressive media caucus platform created to give the opportunity to state and non-state actors to interact with journalists and address national issues.
The event also served as a motivational mechanism to recognize the editorial contribution of reporters to the professional growth and promotion of the Tema office of the Ghana News Agency as the industrial news hub, while contributing to national development.
Mr Okwabi Frimpong said there were two categories of people allowed to demarcate and to survey lands: Licensed or Official Surveyors.
He noted that, the Official Surveyors worked with the Lands Commission at the Survey and Mapping Divisions, while the Licensed Surveyors were licenced by the Lands Commission to complement its work, therefore they are recommended to be used in acquiring land.
He said, “Don’t depend on the services and directions of the surveyor from the Chief or a Clan that you are buying the land from, engage your own Licensed Surveyor to protect your interest”.
Mr Okwabi Frimpong who was a former staff of the Lands Commission noted that “let your surveyor confirm the documents that the Chief or the clan has given to you to ascertain authenticity otherwise.
“If you fail to do that and one day there is a problem, the court will ask for a survey to be done and if you are not lucky, you would be told that your landfalls in the sea”.
He also advised Ghanaians to be interested in the Land Act 2020, Act 1036, which seeks to save many Ghanaians from falling victim to the many land issues the country was confronted with.
He said with the passage of the act, the Lands Commission and Ministry of Lands would come out with some regulations and legislative instruments (LI) to operationalize the act.
Mr Okwabi Frimpong said, “if you are interested in land, whatever shape and form, you need to know a few things from the Act so you don’t fall victim to land issues which have become a nightmare for many Ghanaians.”
According to him, a person in trust of land for a family, clan, stool or skin, the law states that in your dealings with the land, you should be transparent, open, fair and impartial in making decisions affecting the specified land.
Mr Okwabi Frimpong noted that going contrary to the law would attract a fine of not less than 5,000 penalty units and not more than 10,000 penalty units.
He said the law mandated family or group owning land, to establish a Customary Land Secretariat to manage the land at the local, family or stool level whereby “all land transactions have to be recorded”.
According to Mr Okwabi Frimpong, the Lands Commission and the office of the Administrator of Stool Lands would provide technical services to the Customary Land Secretariat.