LAND REFORMS IMPERATIVE

IT is a healthy call by the Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof Stephen Adei, that a national land use policy should be promulgated to empower the government to acquire land from traditional owners to put it to more productive use.
One of the questions that come to mind is whether or not the government can muster the courage to embark on any such initiative because of the nature of our land tenure system.
Land, as a major factor of production, is acknowledged to play a very vital role in the development agenda of every country in the world, which is why even countries surrounded by water are making strenuous efforts to reclaim the land.
Initiatives in the agricultural sector, commerce and a housing boom to put a roof over the head of everyone are driven by land.
According to Prof Adei, only 15 per cent of the land in the country is being utilised, with the remaining 85 per cent lying fallow.
For us, this state of affairs is prevalent essentially because of the nature of the land tenure system that exists in the country, which is not progressive enough to serve as a catalyst for the kind of development we envisage for ourselves in this millennium.
The largest share of the land in this country is vested under stools, skins and families, depending on the geographical location of the land, while a few stretches are also vested in the state.
It must be noted that the ownership structure creates a problem in our setting and the most worrying aspect of this development is that the vast tracts of land lie fallow, but as soon as they are required for any development activity, the owners emerge from nowhere.
It is no wonder that some of the protracted conflicts that this country has witnessed, leading to communal violence and loss of lives and property, are the result of land litigation.
The DAILY GRAPHIC wonders whether Prof Adei’s proposal that the national land use policy can provide the legal backing for the government to "compulsorily acquire land and put it to good use within a legal framework” and the owners compensated will be different from the existing arrangement where landowners turn round to sell land acquired by the government and for which the owners have been compensated.
Perhaps we have ourselves to blame for allowing this ambiguous nature of land ownership structure in the country to affect large stretches of land which lie fallow, while the same land can serve as the engine for our economic take-off, especially in this era of climatic change when yields from land have reduced drastically, making the resort to shifting cultivation impossible.
The country has the potential to feed itself and to become the bread basket of the sub-region because of the fertile nature of its land.
We all know the problems confronting the land tenure system, but what has eluded us so far is our ability to come up with a model that will promote increased economic prosperity for all.
The time for land reform must be now to help promote economic growth and prosperity.