Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, Dr Wilfred K. Anim-Odame, is confident that a 30-day duration period for registrating lands can be achieved in Ghana.
In view of that he says the Commission has rolled out revamped structures backed by technology to have a fully digitised system that will ensure that the current land title registration period which exceeds a year in some instances, is reduced to a month within the shortest possible time.
The Commission has commenced the Ghana Enterprise Land Information system (GELIS), which will ensure conversion of the old paper-based information into a digital format.
This is part of government’s digital Ghana agenda aimed at improving efficient land service delivery as well as to curb loopholes in the land administration process.
Dr Anim-Odame, who spoke in an interview with ClassFMonline.com on the sidelines of a press conference in Accra on Tuesday, 20 March 2018, explained that: “Government has pledged to the Ghanaian populace that within the next four years, we should be able to deliver land title registration within 30 days and that is our target and what we are working towards”.
He said digitisation cannot be achieved in isolation, hence the Commission, as part of its new agenda, is “vigorously transforming our working environment by building a modern office environment”.
Dr Anim-Odame said the first phase of an ultra-modern three storey building has been completed and the Commission will move into the new office complex by the second week of April 2018.
He indicated that the building has a fire-proof record section to prevent a repeat of the 2012 fire incident which resulted in the destruction of some documents.
Dr Anim-Odame added that “even though we are going paperless, we still have to keep paper transactions for posterity and sometimes when we go to court, they want to see evidence of hard copies”.
He emphasised that the health and safety of workers are important but their current working environment does not provide that.
In addition, he urged the Public Services Commission to provide the needed human resource for the Lands Commission, as he lamented the low staff strength of the Commission.
He was not enthused that only 68 personnel out of about 300 that have retired, passed on, or left the Commission within the last three years, have been replaced.
The new vision of the Commission, he said, can only be achieved if the needed resources are provided.
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