Amid the need for land reforms in Ghana, a CDD-Ghana Fellow, Hene Aku Kwapong, is enumerating critical reasons that make reforms very imperative in the country.
Without reforms, he maintains that Ghana’s land cannot support any transformative economic development.
Land challenges are often treated as paperwork frustrations, but the CDD-Ghana Fellow says the real cost is far deeper. To him, the country is losing billions in potential growth because land has become a trap instead of a tool for development.
In a critical assessment of the situation, he breaks down what he describes as the “crushing costs” of Ghana’s broken land system, and how each one chips away at national progress.
Trapped Land Means Trapped Capital
Across Accra, Kumasi, Tamale, and Takoradi, large stretches of land lie idle, not because no one wants them, but because ownership is unclear, multiple families claim the same plot, or court cases have dragged on for years. Developers often buy the same parcel two or three times just to avoid conflict.
The results, he says, are lands that could house thousands that remain empty. Plots meant for factories become no-go zones. Investors walk away. When land is stuck, money is stuck, and the economy slows down.
Properties Without Titles Cannot Be Used as Collateral
Banks in Ghana regularly turn down properties without proper titles. This simple limitation has huge consequences for economic activity.
He says small businesses cannot secure loans to grow with land without titles, and families cannot use their homes to finance education or improvements
He adds that developers cannot access long-term credit, and investors cannot back big land-based projects
Because the land system is unreliable, Ghana ends up with an economy that is credit-starved. Entrepreneurs stay small not because they lack ideas, but because they cannot raise money.
Endless Litigation Drains Economic Time
Land cases in Ghana can take five to fifteen years to conclude. Even after a ruling, enforcement is sometimes weak, leaving people unsure whether they truly own what they purchased.
For investors, such delays are unbearable. No one will build, borrow, or plan under those conditions. Every year spent in court is a year of lost jobs, abandoned projects, and wasted opportunity. As Kwapong notes, time is money, and Ghana is losing both.
Violence Is the Most Expensive Institutional Failure
The consequences are not only financial. They are deadly. He notes that conflicts like the Gbiniyiri clash left 31 people dead and displaced nearly 50,000, shut down schools, markets, and farms. Capital flees immediately.
Bawku, once a thriving trading center, now struggles under fear and division, and in Lukula, destroyed homes represent decades of savings turned to ashes.
And the century-old Nkonya–Alavanyo dispute stands as a painful reminder that unresolved land issues outlive generations. He maintains that a country cannot modernize when parts of it remain battlefields.
The Bottomline
For the CDD-Ghana Fellow, the country’s land system is not just slow or confusing. It is a strong barrier to development. Until the country reforms how land is owned, recorded, and protected, Ghana will continue to lose time, money, and lives.
Hene Aku Kwapong says fixing the land system is not just an administrative task; it is one of the biggest opportunities for national transformation. As he puts it, “a country cannot modernize when its land burns.”
