Friday, August 29, 2008

LAND LITIGATION, WORRYING SIGNALS

IN every society, land is a very vital resource that can be a source of conflict, but serves as a factor of production and development.
Many communities have gone to war because of litigation over land. That is why countries with arid and exhausted land undertake even the reclamation of the sea, in order to get fertile land for agricultural production.
Indeed, without land, no human activity can take place. Right from the cradle to the grave man dwells on earth, tills the land for sustenance or use land for industrial or commercial purposes.
The importance every society attaches to land requires that a legal framework is put in place to guide its use. For sometime now, civil society groups and end users have been calling for land use policy or a functional land tenure system.
The confusion over title to land in some communities in the country, particularly in the Greater Accra Region, makes it imperative for serious attention to be paid to efforts to draft a new land policy for the country.
Article 257, Clause One of the 1992 Constitution states that “All public lands in Ghana shall be vested in the President on behalf of, and in trust for, the people of Ghana”. Notwithstanding this unambiguous provision, most public lands have been encroached upon by squatters. And sometimes, the government spends the taxpayer’s money mobilising security agencies to evict squatters.
The recent eviction exercise at the Race Course in Accra for the construction of a hotel and the protracted litigation to get squatters at Sodom and Gomorrah out of the way for the Odaw Restoration Project to proceed are two classic examples of encroachment on public lands.
Last year, flood waters claimed some lives in Accra because certain people had constructed houses along watercourses. The Ghana Water Company had to embark on a demolition exercise in Weija because certain developers had encroached on the Weija Dam.
It appears our people are not learning useful lessons from these demolition exercises that bring pain to both developers and the owners of the land as many others have refused to go through the well-documented processes of acquiring land in the country.
They hide behind a dysfunctional system to circumvent the rules and regulations and sometimes pay their way to escape punishment. So everybody else is emboldened to do the wrong thing.
On Wednesday, about 100 houses had to be demolished because the rightful owner of the land had obtained judgement against those who had encroached on it.
It was quite a pathetic spectacle to watch the tears and grief on the faces of very old people, who looked on in helpless amazement as the fruits of their toil and sweat crumbled because they failed to abide by the rules.
While we sympathise with them, we urge all Ghanaians to learn useful lessons from the experiences of the residents at Kasoa, whose houses were demolished.
The Daily Graphic calls on those who require land for any development project to go the extra mile to verify the title to the land they wish to acquire.
However, we have issues with the way the authorities have so far handled such exercises.
It is sad that public opinion has always stampeded the government to beat a retreat with the excuse that it wants to introduce a human face to the exercise, which creates the impression that the authorities lack the political will to take tough and harsh decisions.
When wrongdoing is noticed in society, it must be dealt with decisively to serve as a deterrent to others. For when rules and regulations are not deterrent enough, society degenerates into a state of nature, where confusion and violence reign supreme. Such circumstances have served as breeding grounds for macho men and an environment for the survival of the fittest, where might is right.
The Daily Graphic prevails on all Ghanaians to live by the tenets of our Constitution, which affirms our commitment to "freedom, justice, probity and accountability" in all our endeavours, to avoid a lawless state.

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