Tamale, Feb 04, GNA – Chiefs could go to prison for failure to be transparent and accountable to their subjects with regard to sales of land, the amount of money generated from those transactions and how it is spent – Professor John Tiah Bugri has said.
Professor Bugri, Provost of the College of Arts and Built Environment of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and Coordinator of the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA) project, explained that the fees paid to chiefs to acquire land were not private money of the chiefs, and failure to properly account to their subjects regarding such fees could land them in prison.
He said “Land is a source of revenue generation and transactions between parties happen on the land. When they are not done transparently, they can also lead to disputes. So, we want a land governance system whereby everybody in the land governance space will see to it that things are happening properly.”
He added that “If I buy land and pay my relevant fees, the Customary Land Secretariat, which is the collecting body of those fees, will have a body of evidence of all land transactions, the fees they have collected. It is not their private money. So, they will have to then be accountable to their subjects in terms of how much has been generated, where it has been generated from and what they are committing the money to, which has to be in the interest of the development of that particular traditional area.”
He stated this when making a presentation on Customary Land Administration under the new Land Act at a day’s training workshop in Tamale for Coordinators and Representatives of selected Customary Land Secretariats.
The training, which was on the theme: “The New Land Act, (Act 1036) of 2020 and Traditional Authorities”, formed part of the NELGA project being implemented by KNUST with funding from the German Development Cooperation.
It was to create the much-needed awareness and education on the new land governance regime in the country and improve upon the implementation of the new land legislation.
Participants were drawn from the Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East and Upper West Regions.
The new Land Act governs land operations in the country, and it is also a one-stop-shop of land legislation for land governance in the country.
It has a provision it has drawn from Article 267 of the 1992 Constitution, which stipulates that traditional authorities were responsible for land governance in their areas in accordance with custom and tradition in the capacity of fiduciaries; custodians for the benefit of the people in those areas.
Professor Bugri said this provision meant that chiefs must be accountable and transparent adding “If there is any traditional authority; be it a chief, a family head, a clan, a tindanaa who does not want to show accountability and transparency in land governance to their respective people, the court could be the body to hear the matter and if the particular traditional body is found culpable, the penalty ranges from a fine in the sum of 5,000 to 10,000 penalty units or five to 10 years in prison or a combination of the two. So, this introduces a new criminal dynamic if you do not have yourself accountable to your subjects in land governance.”
He, therefore, urged Coordinators of Customary Land Secretariats to keep quarterly records of land transactions in their jurisdictions, and which should be accessible to their subjects to ensure accountability and transparency in land governance in their jurisdictions.
He also urged participants to impart the knowledge gained from the training to their colleagues “To ensure improved land governance in the country that stands the chance of minimising land disputes and litigations in the country.”
Madam Belinda Dantera, Coordinator of Paga Customary Land Secretariat in the Upper East Region spoke about the impact of the training on her work saying “What I have learnt here is just like a revision of what I am doing but few things have been made clear to me. There were instances where people came to me to warn me not to give out their information if somebody wanted to access land transactions. But here, the new Land Act has made it mandatory. So, when I go back and such a thing comes up, I will act based on the law.”
Alhaji Alhassan Kumbanje, Coordinator of Wa Customary Land Secretariat in the Upper West Region, said “we have put in place mechanisms to prevent conflicts in land governance” and lauded the training programme saying, “The new Land Act is in the right order to further streamline their operations to prevent multiple sale of land, and or resolve issues of multiple sale of land.”
GNA