The Chronicle yesterday carried a story about President Akufo-Addo emphasizing on the speedy digitisation of the Lands Commission to ensure effective land administration in the country. This is good advice and we strongly agree with the President, because the digitisation of the Lands Commission is a must in this digital society where most services are being moved online.
According to the President, in this age of technology, it is unacceptable that the Lands Commission still operate in a largely manual environment, stressing that efficient land administration could not be delivered if documents on lands had to be processed manually.
Digital transformations of the Lands Commission will result in changing the land administration system from manual to digital. It will enhance greater activity and better efficiency in the land markets, improve government revenue and stimulate growth. The digitalisation will also deliver greater accountability, better transparency and service quality for all land stakeholders, and reduce the potential for corrupt transactions.
Today, we live in a world that is continuously becoming more data-driven and automated, where physical systems and people are increasingly connected into the virtual space, and that is exactly what the Land Act, 2020 seems to achieve by revising, harmonizing, and consolidating laws on land to ensure sustainable land administration and management, as well as effective and efficient land tenure systems.
Successive governments have strived to improve the country’s land administration regime over the years through the Land Administration Project (LAP), which seeks to consolidate urban and rural land management administration. Significant strides have been made in land reforms in the country with the augmenting of the Lands Commission, through the enactment of the Land Commission Act 2008 (Act 767), and the establishment of five client service units at the Commission to enhance land service delivery.
The nation has made good advances in land digitisation, as stakeholders hope to benefit from the various advantages of digitisation, such as faster access to information, improved customer experience, increased productivity, lower operational costs, improved decision making, and improved information security.
The Chronicle will also like to warn agent provocateurs to desist from ruining the Lands Commission, which has been built over the past years. An example is the disaster that occurred this year, in May, where it was reported by myjoyonline that a downpour had destroyed hundreds of documents, computers, and scanners at the Head Office of the Commission in Cantonments, Accra.
The basement of the new building was heavily submerged in water after the downpour, leading to flooding of the Records Room, Files Room and IT Unit. The affected documents included indentures, land maps, and essential land documents.
The Chronicle believes that going online would lead to improved maps and spatial data, digital transformation, systematic recording, verification, the creation of a national cadastre and the implementation of a national spatial data infrastructure. In the same vein, we must also not destroy what we have built with our hands.
The Chronicle urges the Lands Commission to expedite action on the digitisation agenda and ensure that it goes fully digital.
