A real estate company, Enkesba Limited, is battling it out with the Lands Commission over 287.13 acres of land at Kpone Bawaleshie, near Tema, in the Greater Accra Region.
The company is distressed, following suspected deliberate underhand dealings at the Lands Commission to take the land it said it duly registered from them, despite proof of ownership. According to the company, the land had been acquired to develop a gated estate with modern amenities.
Enkesba Limited told The Chronicle that somewhere in 2021, they noticed some development and the construction of a wall on a portion of their land by the Appolonia Development Company Limited.
A search conducted on June 8, 2021 at the Public and Vested Lands Management Division (PVLMD) of the Lands Commission showed that the Commission had registered many land instruments to affect their registered portion of the land without notice to them.
The Grantor, Nii Narh Okunor, Head of the Otutsu-Knor Family of KponeBawaleshie, who conducted the search, said in a court documents that although the deed of declaration registered by his late grandfather, sometime in 1971, appeared on the search results as the principal owner of the whole site of land, more transactions had been conducted in respect of the land without involving the family.
PETITION
The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources on May 3, 2024 responded to a petition by Enkesba Limited to investigate the ownership of the parcel of land it had acquired for the development of a gated estate with modern amenities.
The said land is said to have been registered and plotted by deed number B1036 and registration number 1160/1972 by their Grantors.
The ministry told the petitioner that it had received a report from the Lands Commission on the said land and that per the brief, at the time the grant was made to Enkesba Limited on November 30, 2020 the interest of their Grantor, through a registered declaration, “had been overtaken by a recording of a judgment dated 12th April, 2010.”
According to the ministry, if the petitioner had made a diligent search at the time of the grant, the encumbrance would have been detected.
“That means your grantor did not have the capacity at the time of making the grant per the records at the Lands Commission,” the Chief Director, Prof. Patrick Agbesinyale, responded to the petition.
RESPONSE
On November 4, 2024 Enkesba Limited responded to the May 3 reply by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, doubting the “authenticity” of the said judgment that indicated that the Grantor’s interest had been overtaken by a recording of judgment dated April 12, 2010.
The company argued that it demanded a search report from the Lands Commission before the acquisition of the land, and the outcome was that the whole site was registered in the Grantor’s family name, although several other leases had been registered by the Lands Commission without recourse to the family.
The company said it was based on the outcome of the search that the family arranged and sold 287.13 acres of the land that was “completely free from any encroachment” to them.
The ministry, however, indicated in its response that the Lands Commission had no mandate to determine ownership of the land and advised the company to wait for the outcome of the court case between the Grantor and Appolonia Development Co. Limited.
However, the real estate company informed the ministry that the portion of land sold to them “falls outside the disputed land, hence there is no justification in linking the registration of our land to the alleged litigation.”
The plaintiff in the case is the Grantor, who took Appolonia Development Co. Limited, who they share a common boundary with, to court over alleged encroachment on a portion of their land.
PAYMENT & PLAN
The Managing Director of Enkesba Limited, Kenneth Boa-Amponsem, who responded to the ministry, said the company had made all the appropriate payments to the Lands Commission.
He also argued that the cadastral plan has been signed and approved by the Accra Regional Survey on March 17, 2022 adding that that would not have been done if there was any issue over the land.
Against the background, the company has requested that an independent technical committee, constituted by the Ministry of Lands and the Ministry of National Security, be formed to probe the matter.
