Ghana’s land administration system has long been plagued by inefficiencies, high costs, litigation, and encroachment, challenges that have hindered investment, complicated land ownership, and strained national development efforts.
Across the country, acquiring land documents remains a daunting task for many Ghanaians. Land registration is often slow, expensive, and inconsistent. It can take several months, or even years, for a single title to be processed, leaving many landowners in legal limbo and discouraging formal land ownership. These delays have created a national backlog and undermined confidence in the system.
Land disputes are another widespread concern. From the Greater Accra Region to the Northern Savannah, overlapping claims, poor documentation, and the unlawful conversion of stool lands have fuelled litigation.
Reports indicate that land-related cases are among the most common in Ghana’s civil courts, with some dragging on for years due to missing records or uncooperative officials. Public lands, including wetlands, nature reserves, and open spaces, have also come under increasing pressure from encroachers.
To tackle these systemic problems, the government is now placing renewed emphasis on decentralising and digitising land services, as well as enforcing professionalism within the Lands Commission. One such effort is unfolding in the Western Region, where the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has just inaugurated a 23-member Regional Lands Commission Board.
At the ceremony in Sekondi on May 12, Lands Minister Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah charged the new board to reduce land registration turnaround time to just 30 working days and decentralise services to district levels to boost access and reduce bottlenecks.
He questioned why everyone should travel to the regional capital just to register land and urged the board to reform the current system to better serve citizens.
Minister Buah also tasked the board with curbing land encroachment, enforcing land use laws, and preventing the illegal conversion of stool lands into family lands, particularly when such conversions violate customary law. He stressed that reducing the cost of land services and increasing transparency are essential to restoring public trust and attracting investors.
The Western Regional Minister, Joseph Nelson, acknowledged that land litigation remains a major challenge in the region, mirroring the situation in many other parts of the country. He called for greater collaboration among the Lands Commission, traditional authorities, and the courts to resolve disputes more efficiently.
