CPP will ban sale of lands to individuals

THE Convention People’s Party (CPP) has said that a government of the party will progressively acquire more lands for the state and will prohibit the sale of land to individuals as part of a larger process of ensuring Ghana’s sovereignty.
“In order to further protect state acquired lands, the properties or lands will be clearly marked on district/municipal/metropolitan maps and posted at public places in each district and updated regularly. Community ownership will be promoted to ensure protection of such property.”
According to the party’s spokesperson on Lands & Forestry, Mr Kosi Dedey, who spoke on the CPP’s alternative propositions on the Effective & Efficient Management of Lands & Forestry, the party will also actively work to restore public trust in Government’s capacity to manage the nation’s limited land and forest resource by ensuring efficient use in order to create wealth.
The party, he said, will also actively promote and support the active use of bamboo for furniture and construction to ease domestic pressure on timber and to ensure the sustainability of Ghana’s forests and wild species.
Donald Ato Dapatem reports that Mr Dedey said many Ghanaians, especially those living in urban areas, spent an average of two hours each day in traffic and that if 200,000 people moved from one part of Accra to the other and 25 per cent of these persons spent an average of two hours in traffic, that amounted to 100,000 man-hours lost each day.
“We can go further to ask what could be done with 100,000 man-hours. This amount of time equates to 50 people working eight-hours a day for one year.”
According to Mr Dedey, all these occurred because the country had failed to plan for efficient utilisation of land, because if there had been proper planning for physical infrastructure, most of the traffic would disappear.
Proper planning, he noted, would also curtail power outages and water crisis in the cities as well as floods and ensure abundance of food all year round, while at the same time get enough space as safe recreational grounds.
“Zoning of land will be done based on the scientific evidence and enforced for sustainability. Earthquake zones must either be unpopulated, sparsely populated or planned with enough spaces in time of emergency,” Mr Dedey stated.
Mr Dedey added that the CPP would improve regulation on commercial trade in wildlife and game to ensure survival of other species of life and to sustain this, the Forestry Commission will be better resourced to protect wild animals.
According to the CPP Shadow Member for Lands and Forestry, the inability of government to compensate quickly for land acquired had made it difficult for people to trust government, more especially when the same government subsequently turned round and disposed of land to cronies in and outside government, a situation which had made social tensions to become rife.
“What our leaders fail to appreciate or pretend not to appreciate is that, there is world-wide competition for land and underground water with multi-nationals supported by richer nations and interest acquiring land on massive scales for the production of either raw materials or finished products to feed the markets of more developed countries,” he added.
He explained that it was for that reason that there seem to be a lot of foreign interest in funding and directing how land and its resources should be managed but unfortunately for Ghanaians “Our political leadership has become so weak that from birth to death we have come to depend on donors who have their own interest in everything that they seek to fund.”