Traditional Areas To Demarcate Lands

An officer in the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands has appealed to traditional authorities and allodia landowners to apply to the Office to enable them to facilitate the demarcation of customary land boundaries. The Second Ghana Land Administration Project (LAP Two) in collaboration with the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands is facilitating the process which is demand driven. The Deputy Director, Mr Patrick Amoah, who said this during a stakeholders� meeting at Bongo commended the Bongo Traditional Council for being the first in the country under the LAP Two project to apply and to be qualified for the execution of the demarcation of Customarily Land Boundary. Mr Amoah said there were many benefits that could be accrued from the project and that apart from reducing the number of conflicts associated with land it would help boost investor confidence. He said the reasons for the government and the World Bank committing so much resources to execute of the project was to help preserve natural resources such as gold and other minerals to avoid conflicts with other neigbouring countries which share common borders with Ghana. He mentioned for instance that the Bongo Traditional Area was sharing land boundaries with Burkina Faso and stressed that it was very important to demarcate the area to avoid any future conflict with the neigbouring country. He told the stakeholders that the documentation of the Customarily Land would be done free of charge except that landowners would be asked to clear the lands and to also submit themselves to Alternative Disputes Resolution (ADR). He stated that in the case of Bongo the process had already been completed and social impact assessment also done by the Building and Road Research Institute. The Paramount Chief of the Bongo Traditional Area, Naba Baba Salifu Aleemyaarum , praised the project and said it would help his traditional council to curtail the numerous land conflicts in the area and cited for instance that currently there were a number of such cases pending before him and the courts. He appealed to his sub chiefs and neigbouring chiefs who shared borders with Bongo including all community members to buy into the idea to foster peace in the area. The Chief said special tress, grasses and rivers that were used by their ancestors 400 years ago for land demarcations had been washed away with erosion and that the only way they could preserve the land for the future generation to avoid conflict was to allow the officials to demarcate the area.