The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources issued a press statement yesterday, denying a newspaper publication that it had employed security agencies as land guards to protect government lands.
The Ministry’s statement reads: “The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, by this press release, refutes the allegations made by The Daily Post Newspaper and the Ghanaweb online news platform on the 17th Day of July, 2023, on a purported statement made by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, captioned ‘Chief Director at the Lands Ministry reveals Ministry of Lands, Military and Police, have been contracting Land Guards’ and ‘Government engages services of lands guards – Chief Director of Lands Ministry’ respectively.
“The Ministry would like to set the records straight, that Government, and for that matter the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, does not contract the services of land guards in its operations.
“However, the Ministry, through its agency, Lands Commission, legally engaged the services of Aynok Holding Limited, a registered limited liability company, to assist in reclaiming encroached government lands. This engagement has been in effect since 2012. We wish to categorically state that Government, and by extension the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, employs legal processes to reclaim all encroached state lands.”
The Ministry’s statement did not name Alhassan Suhuyini, Member of Parliament for Tamale North, as the source of the story, but it is on record that he granted an interview to the media and ‘divulged’ the news, after the Chief Director at the Ministry appeared before the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament recently.
In the said interview with the media, myjoyonline.com quoted Suhuyini as saying: “One would have thought that with the passage of this law to outlaw land guards, our land tenure system would have been sanitised and we would have all been hopeful that acquiring land will no longer be a matter of life and death, and so it came to us, as a surprise, that the Ministry has resorted to contracting a land guard to protect government lands.
“The other shocking revelation, according to the Chief Director, is that, even the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police use this same land guards to protect their lands. So, if the military and the police cannot protect their own lands and have to resort to the use of a land guards, then what will be the fate of the common Ghanaian who wants to acquire land and is faced with land guards?
“What was again scandalous by the Chief Director’s revelation is that this particular land guard has a set-up the state cannot compete.”
Just yesterday, Joy FM interviewed the Chairperson of the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament that met the Lands Ministry officials, and unreservedly condemned Suhuyini for going public with the information when they are yet to submit their report to the plenary and Speaker. He then threatened to report the conduct of the Tamale North MP to the Speaker.
But, in a follow up interview with Suhuyini, he denied any wrongdoing, saying, he did not breach any Standing Orders of the House by granting an interview to the media relative to the subject matter.
Though Suhuyini might be right in saying that he did not breach any rule of the House, The Chronicle agrees with the Chairperson of the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament that his colleague made a mistake in going public, when they had not yet submitted their report to the plenary.
Since The Chronicle was not at the committee sitting, we cannot deny or confirm the statement being attributed to the Ministry of Lands official by the Tamale North MP.
We, however, think if Suhuyini is even telling the truth, the truth in this situation does not constitute a defence. We believe state officials appear before the various committees of Parliament and willingly give out information, because they feel safe in doing so. However, when they have cameras on them, they will not be ready to give out the same information.
Clearly, what Suhuyini has done will discourage state officials from opening up and giving vital information to Parliamentary Committees. This is the reason why we are contending that the truth does not constitute a defence in this case. What Suhuyini has done would put fears in others and prevent them from telling the truth to the various committees of Parliament in future.
As for our media colleagues, who published Suhuyini’s interview, we do not think they have committed any mistake. As a matter of fact, The Chronicle would have also done the same.
The onus was on Suhuyini to have waited till the final report of the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament is submitted to the appropriate authority, before rushing to grant public interviews.
