The new directives
Last week, we woke up to the great news about
the Public Notice issued by the Greater Accra Regional Lands Commission. It was
a heartwarming message to all who use the services of the Commission. The two
main issues addressed in the notice were as follows:
i.
Consolidation of search reports: The Lands
Commission will, from 1st October, 2021, issue one search
report in respect of searches conducted at its three divisions.
ii.
Applications for searches to be made only
online: From 1st October, 2021, anybody who wants to make a search
at Lands Commission must submit the application online. It must be done on the
Commission’s website. Even if you walk to their office, they will help you to
submit your search application online.
These new directives, if fully implemented,
will truly enhance the land administration process in the Greater Accra Region.
It will also give true meaning to the changes introduced by the Land Act of
2019.
The
old challenges
For instance, there are three divisions of
the Lands Commission, namely, Public & Vested Lands Management Division,
Land Registration Division, and Survey & Mapping Division. Before 1st
October, 2021, each of the three divisions issued separate search reports on
the same piece of land. Therefore, once a person submitted a search application
at one of the divisions, the other two divisions will not handle it.
An encounter our law firm had at the Lands
Commission recently will help explain this further. We submitted a search application
to Regional Lands Commission, Accra. After several months of following up
without any results, we wrote officially to entreat the Lands Commission to
expedite action for us. We later received a reply from the Lands Registration
Division (LRD) saying that our search was being conducted at the Public &
Vested Lands Management Division and not the Land Registration Division. We
were directed by the letter to channel our grievance to the Regional Lands
Officer of the Lands Commission for redress, as if Land Registration Division
was a separate and distinct entity from the Lands Commission. All that the LRD
had to do was to forward our letter to the PVLMD to work on it instead of
directing us to now go and engage the Regional Lands Officer to refer our
letter to the PVLMD, causing us further delay and monetary costs. It is for
this reason that we are excited that Lands Commission will now issue only one
search report.
Secondly, the new directive that all
applications must be made online is also a welcome development. It will help
eliminate the human intervention and interference in the search system. At this
point, the most important question is: how long will it take for one to receive
the search results on line? In January, 2021, we filed a search at the Lands
Commission for a client. It was placed online for us to check its progress. It
moved at such a slow pace that, we eventually, after several visits by our law
clerk, received the search report in late June, 2021. The simple search took
six months. We trust to luck things are going to change for the better.
Conclusion
It may be recalled that when President
Akufo-Addo inaugurated the new Greater Accra Regional Lands Commission
recently, His Excellency charged the Commission to issue search reports within
one month. It is our hope that the Lands Commission will prove equal to the
task.
Useful information
To make a search online, use: https://onlineservices.lc.gov.gh
For guidelines on how to do online searches,
payment, tracking the application, etc, visit: https://www.lc.gov.gh/services
The writer is the Founder
& Managing Counsel of FSB Law Consult. You can reach her at francisca@fsblawconsult.com and
( Benjamin, please put my social media handles here.) Please visit her website:
http://www.fsboateng.com for
her blog articles, podcast, YouTube videos, etc.
