Land Management as a component of Sustainable Development: The role of traditional leadership in the Kumasi Traditional Area

Source: Mariam Agyeman Gyasi Jawhary (Mrs.)

INTRODUCTION

I wish to commence this presentation by issuing a disclaimer. I make no claim to legal scholarship. I do not know what criteria the Faculty of Law applied when they decided to place me in the hallowed ranks of legal scholarship. However, having been manipulated and emotionally manoeuvred into accepting this invitation, I shall endeavour to discharge the task I have been entrusted with by sharing my thoughts with you on the topic: Land Management as a component of sustainable development: The Role of Traditional Leadership in the Kumasi Traditional Area.
Given the composition of this audience I can assure you the language will not be too technical and I will be keeping it as simple as possible. I will be looking at what constitutes sustainable development, the history and trajectory of sustainable development, Asante customary tenure and land management structures and the enhanced role traditional leadership in the Kumasi Traditional Area can play in land management as a component of sustainable development.

I will set out that chiefs are important in the emergence of the private property acquisition since they are recognised as custodians of stool land, who have to rights to dispose of stool land and issue the relevant documents evidencing grants or alienations or disposition made by them to prospective developers in their capacity as allodial and sub-allodial owners of stool land.

This presentation will show that under the current legal regime, although the allodial interest is deemed to be the ultimate interest in land, its strength appears to have been broken by constitutional and statutory derogation from and constraints on the same.

I will make a quick comparison of the institutional arrangements made by government for land management in relation to traditional land tenure and question whether they do not have any impact on effective customary land management and development.

I will be arguing that the policy reform pursued over-strengthen the process of private acquisition of land as opposed to effective land management. This is due to the neoliberal framework of market governance of land which in some situations ignores the people in whose interest land should be managed.

I will set out the political economy of the role of the chief towards impactful/transformative development.

I will be guided by the question of whether the chief is truly a development agent? And if so, what specific role can they play to promote not just development but impactful/transformative development that will reflect in the lives of their people.

Chair, I will argue that chiefs must play an enhanced role in land management as opposed to a one-off disposition of land by virtue of private acquisition.

All countries including Ghana need to be able to meet their citizenry’s basic needs of employment, food, energy, water and sanitation. Sustainable development principles encourage us to conserve and enhance our resources. Indeed, sustainability is important for economic growth and sustainable development practices help to protect our natural resources, the protection of which resources is very crucial to the preservation of life. Economies rely heavily on trade, much of which depends on natural resources to produce goods or provide services. The goal of sustainable development is to secure good living opportunities for present and future generations. Article 36 of the 1992 Constitution sets out the State’s responsibility to guarantee efficient management of the national economy so people can exercise and enjoy their economic rights and the ownership of property among others.

Sustainable development is an organising principle that aims to meet human development goals while also enabling natural systems to provide necessary resources and ecosystem services to humans.

Sustainable development has been defined as development that meets the needs of the present, without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

In other words, it is a way of organising society by which it can exist for a long duration without compromising the availability of resources for future generations for sustainable development. Factors such as preserving the environment and natural resources along with maintaining social and economic equality need to be followed.

It is not a new concept and has been followed by many cultures over the course of history with the aim of maintaining a balance between man and nature as well as the economy. Sustainable development looks to create a balance between economic, environmental and social needs.
The objectives of Sustainable Development are:

Economic Growth – for creating an economy that is sustainable and growing in the right direction.
Protecting the environment – this objective focuses on contribution by humans towards protecting and enhancing the natural environment by minimising pollution and waste, also working towards reducing the global carbon footprint and
Social Inclusion – this objective focuses on providing the facility of housing for future generations and assisting in creating healthy, strong and vibrant global connections.

IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Why the need for Sustainable Development?

The importance of sustainable development resounds in the following:

The judicious use of available resources and working towards maintaining the ecological balance;
To prevent degradation of the environment and laying emphasis on protecting the environment; and
To prevent over-exploitation of resources.

HISTORY OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

The concept of sustainable development formed the basis of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The summit marked the first international attempt to draw up action plans and strategies for moving towards a more sustainable pattern of development. Sustainable development was conceived of as the solution to the problems of environmental degradation discussed by the Brundtland Commission in the 1987 report titled Our Common Future.

The remit of the Brundtland Report was to investigate the numerous concerns that had been raised in previous decades namely that human activity was having severe and negative impact on the planet and that patterns of growth and development would be unsustainable if they continued unchecked.

The concept of sustainable development received its first major international recognition in 1972 at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. The term was not referred to explicitly, nonetheless, the international community agreed to the notion now fundamental sustainable development that both development and the environment hitherto addressed as separate issues could be managed in a mutually beneficial way.

The term was popularised 15 years later in Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development which included what is described the “classic” definition of sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

It was not until the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (also known as the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, however, that major world leaders recognised sustainable development as the major challenge the world faces today.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (SDGS)

In 2015, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also known as Global Goals were adopted by all United Nations Member states. The goals and targets are universal in that they apply to all countries around the world.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with their 169 targets, form the core of the 2030 Agenda. They balance the economic, social and ecological dimensions of sustainable development and place the fight against poverty and sustainable development on the same agenda for the first time.

In June 2022, world leaders met to review the journey from Stockholm 1972 to Stockholm+50. At that meeting world leaders recognised that no single entity can realise the goals of sustainable development. The meeting resolved “that humanity’s very future depends on solidarity, trust and ability to work together as a global family to achieve a common goal. No community or country however powerful, can solve its challenges alone. Multilateral action has achieved an enormous amount over the past 75 years. Our Common Agenda must be a starting point for ideas and initiatives that build on these achievements. In much the same way, the concerted efforts of all stakeholders in our development agenda must be enhanced and harnessed towards the achievement of social justice and economic opportunity. There is a need to work together for our common agenda.”

The Our Common Agenda in sum is an agenda of action designed to accelerate the implementation of existing agreements including the Sustainable Development Goals. On 9th March 2023 the United Nations Secretary- General issued a policy brief dubbed “Future Generations”. The policy brief contains suggestions for practical steps to fulfil member states’ long-standing commitment to meet the demands of the present in a way that safeguards the interests of future generations and preserves their ability to effectively enjoy all human rights.

“What we do for future generations is also what we need to do for ourselves which is to take challenges and opportunities that lie in the future far more seriously than we currently do”.

There is no trade-off between meeting the needs of the present and taking into account the needs of the future. Conscious efforts to consider the future will leave generations better off.

The brief defines “future generations” as “all people who will come after us”. Their lives and eventual ability to effectively enjoy all human rights and meet their needs are already influenced by our actions today. According to the policy brief, these people are distinct from and by current demographic projections will be vastly more numerous than present generations. More than 10 billion people are projected to be born before the end of this century alone, predominantly in countries that are currently low or middle income”.

“The point of a focus on future generations is that they are not yet alive to tell us what they need or think. There is a great deal about them that we cannot presume to know. But we do know that an obligation to act in a way that preserves their ability to effectively enjoy all human rights and determine their own needs in the future has already been enshrined in countless international agreements and in the very concept of sustainable development defined as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”.
Most consequential decisions are taken without regard for the long term, even though it is now widely accepted that the interest of the future generations “should be considered at all levels of decision making. Present generations have a responsibility to halt and prevent developments that could threaten the survival of future generations. Commitments to future generations are integral to customs, cultures and religions around the world, including indigenous knowledge systems. Such commitments are increasingly influencing national constitutions, legislation and judicial decisions.”

Thus the UN history, agenda and trajectory of the commitment to future generations starts from 1945 with the Charter of the United Nations, 1972 with the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the 1992 Rio Declarations on Environment and Development, the 1995 Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development, the 1997 Declaration on the Responsibilities of the Present Generations towards Future Generations, the 2015 Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the 2020 UN 75 Declaration on the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, the 2021 Our Common Agenda Report, the 2022 General Assembly resolution 76/300 on the human rights to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and the launch of policy briefs in 2023 to the Summit of the Future to be held in 2024. At least 394 General Assembly resolutions have mentioned “future generations” since 1961.

This is the agenda that we also as responsible citizens of the world must set ourselves. Upholding the rights and meeting the needs of those alive today is a pre-condition for securing a better future. “Our first action on behalf of future generations must therefore be to fulfil the commitments to those currently alive in a sustainable way and with more emphasis on long-term thinking. Both present and future generations will benefit from strategic national systems that put sustainable development at their centre.” Sustainable development goals include eliminating poverty, ending hunger, building sustainable cities and promoting economic development.

PART ONE

Land is the resource that encompasses the natural resources used in production today alongside labour and capital. Its significance in sustaining every aspect our lives, providing fundamental life-support systems as well as serving as the foundation of our economy and society cannot be over-emphasised. Those who control the factors of production often enjoy the greater wealth in society. Land’s basic functions can be summarised as a store of wealth for individuals, groups or a community, production of food, fibre, fuel or other biotic materials for human use as well as the biological habitats for plants, animals and micro-organising. Land is a gift of nature and its supply is fixed.

LAND MANAGEMENT

Sustainability and sustainable development are concepts that both speak to the danger of consuming resources faster than they can be replenished.

Sustainability is said to be a broad term that describes managing resources without depleting them for future generations. The concept goes beyond environmental sustainability which concerns itself with natural resources, to include economic and social sustainability, which relate to meeting people’s current economic and social needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their needs. As earlier stated, sustainable development is about engaging the world’s educational systems to work for a more sustainable future. According to UNESCO sustainability is a long-term goal towards a more sustainable world, whereas sustainable development implies the processes and pathways embarked upon or adopted to reach this goal. To achieve sustainability there is a need to balance economic, environmental and social factors in equal harmony.

Land management concerns itself with the process of managing the use of and development (in both urban and rural settings) of land resources. It represents the economic, social and cultural activities of agricultural, residential, industrial, mining, citric and recreational uses that are practised at a given place.

Public and private lands frequently represent very different uses. Land use changes occur constantly and can have specific and conclusive effects on air and water quality, generation of waste and human health any others.

While many of nature’s resources are renewable, they are by no means inexhaustible and that is where management is needed.
On account of the fact that land is used for a variety of purposes, management will differ depending on how the land as used.
The importance of managing land resources is linked to three major challenges that currently are experienced globally. These challenges are not independent of each other, are inter-related and are:

Pressures from increasing population that puts pressure on environmental resources that affect human livelihoods. For example, increased urbanisation that removes lands from other productive purposes such as agriculture.
Climate change-highly complex and not easy to pinpoint. I am certain all of us here will attest to the increased frequency, intensity and duration of the fiery heat waves that we are currently experiencing in Kumasi. I am told some eye specialists are even recommending glasses for their patients to combat the effect of UV rays on the eyes; and
Unsustainable land use practices such as the use of agricultural chemicals which can alter ecosystems and the services they deliver for the benefit of human livelihood. Often taken for granted, our ecosystem services are the many life-sustaining benefits we receive from nature that ensure we have clean air and water, fertile soil for crop productions, pollination, flood control amongst other several benefits.

And yet what do we do in order to protect these systems? To guarantee food security as to ensure we do not go hungry? To alleviate poverty? To build sustainable cities and communities?

In a paper published by Professor Kassim Kasanga (then the Minister for Lands and Forestry) titled Current Land Policy issues in Ghana, he examined the reasons for the failure of poverty reduction strategies with direct focus on land issues and development. He identified among others that land issues had not been integrated into the wider development agenda, progressive land policies did not guide prevailing development policy, the public and customary land management institutions were too weak to implement policies that alleviate poverty. In the section of the paper headed Land Ownership patterns and management systems he writes: “Ghana has no urban policy. Findings from recent research, “Rapid urbanisation, land markets and gender insecurity in peri-urban Kumasi, Ghana are frightening. The evidence suggests that the preparation or approval of a planning scheme/layout marks the end of agricultural land-holdings for both women and men.

The followings findings are noteworthy: “Rapid urbanisation is proceeding unabated. So is the conversion of peri-urban agricultural lands into housing estates and related urban uses.

The land market is demand-driven. All the decision-making process towards converting agricultural land rests mainly with the chiefs, queen-mothers and their elders along with the public land-use and land administration agencies as stipulated in the 1992 Constitution.
Families and individuals in the communities are rarely consulted.
Once a layout/planning scheme has been initiated or approved, farmers lose total control of their farmland. Women, the overwhelming majority in the farm business are usually the first and the worst affected.

Displaced farmers are rarely compensated by the Chiefs, queen-mothers or government. Displacement of the indigenous people without compensation claims has resulted in some disquiet, misunderstanding and sometimes open hostility between the displaced families on the one hand and traditional land custodians and the new developer on the other. The most evident benefits of urbanisation from the point of view of the respondents include: access to electricity and social amenities; increased building operations; access to markets; hospitals and some limited form of employment.

He continues:

“However, the adverse effects of urbanisation far outweigh the benefits, an unbearably high cost of living, food crises, chronic unemployment, poverty loss of agricultural land and the concomitant landlessness and homelessness, environmental degradation and pollution, teenage pregnancy and social vices are shaking the social and economic fabric of the community. Gender insecurity is real and grave”.

He further writes:

“Land Ownership, land rights and tenures are administered in a plural legal environment with customary laws and norms operating alongside statutes. The customary owners-stools, claims, families and tendamba, who hold the allodial title own about 78 percent of the total land area in Ghana. Of the remaining 22 percent, the state owns outright about 20 percent while the remaining 2 percent is held in dual ownership: the legal estate in the government and the beneficiary/ equitable interest in the community. However, the state has elaborate institutional and legal structures for the management of all those types of land.”

The objective of sustainable land management is to harmonise the complementary goals of providing environmental, economic and social opportunities for the benefit of present and future generations while maintaining and enhancing the quality of land. Sustainable land management should meet changing human needs (agriculture, forestry conservation) while ensuring long-term socio-economic and ecological functions of the land. Land management practices have become an increasing focus because the drive for better land use outcomes inevitably come from how land is managed. Land management practices aim at the conservation or intensification of existing land use. Management functions include the fixing and collection of rent, rent review and lease renewals. Land management goes hand in hand with land administration.

The term Land Administration is said to have been coined in 1993 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in its Land Administration Guidelines. The Guidelines define Land Administration as:

“the process of determining, recording and disseminating information about ownership, value and use of land and its associated resources. These processes include the determination (sometimes called ‘adjudication’) of land rights and other attributes, surveying and describing these, their detailed documentation, and the provision of relevant information for supporting land markets”.

According to the UNECE, land administration systems should ideally:

Guarantee ownership and secure tenure;
Support the land and property tax system;
Constitute security for credit systems;
Develop and monitor land markets;
Protect State lands (and for our peculiar plural situation, I will include Stool lands);
Reduce land disputes;
Facilitate land reform;
Improve urban planning and infrastructure development;
Support land management based on consideration for the environment;
Produce statistical data;

Land administration in Ghana has been guided by both enacted legislation and by customary practices. Land ownership in Ghana is divided into two main types customary tenures and public vested lands/state lands.

In June 1999, the government of Ghana launched a new National Land Policy document that sought to address some fundamental problems associated with land administration and management in the country. In 2001, the government made proposals to prepare and implement a Land Administration Programme to provide a better platform for evolving an effective and efficient land administration that would translate later within a holistic environment, the National Land Policy into action. The project was headed by the World Bank. The expectation was the realisation of an up-to-date land information system that supports good management of land records. It was also targeted at the establishment of a fair and efficient process for registering land, building capacity in institutions, harmonising Statutory and customary law and improving land dispute resolution.

Tensions sometimes occur between customary and formal land regimes. Here in Kumasi, one typical example is the piece of legislation dating back to colonial times, titled Ashanti Administration (Road Appropriation) Ordinance of 1902 that reserves land lying on either side of the highways leading to and out of Kumasi calculated at 300 feet either way from the centre of the road. Such lands have been managed by the Lands Commission. The Lands Commission has had to contend with situations where some chiefs have made grants of portions of these reserved areas to prospective developers. Such allottees when they apply to the Commission to perfect their titles then discover that their grantors lacked capacity to make those grants.

‘Nananom’ of Kumasi do not want to hear the phrase “Road Appropriation” which is how the Ordinance is commonly and popularly referred to.

LAND MANAGEMENT IN THE KUMASI TRADITIONAL AREA

This part of the discussion focuses on our customary land tenure and management in the Kumasi Traditional Area. Reference to the Kumasi Traditional Area is not a reference to the geographical territory nor the local government administrative area of the Kumasi Metropolis but the jurisdiction created in consequence of the traditional, constitutional hierarchy of chiefs/stools that be found within the Kumasi Metropolis itself as well as traditional areas which fall outside the Kumasi Metropolis. Some such areas are Senfi (near Anhwiakwanta within the Bekwai Municipality), Pakyi No. 1, Pakyi No. 2, Essienimpong, Baworo, Mankranso, Abuontem,Nketia,Amoaman,Barekese,Ohwim,Adako-Jachie,Kwamo,Sawua,Esreso,Feyiase,Tanoso,Bokankye,Abuakwa, Apatrapa, Afari, Mamponten, Ayeduase, Ampabame No.1, Ampabame No.2, Ekyem, and Tikrom.

Before the forays of external colonial forces into our land, our Asante had its own well-defined, organised leadership replete with its own constitutional set-up.

By historical arrangements Asante customary land management was and is practised in accordance with intricate and well-defined rules which coincide with the political structure and constitutional relations that exist among stools in the Kumasi State. After the unsuccessful attempts by the British to annihilate Asante political power, a historic meeting took place in Kumasi. It was a meeting of Otumfuo Sir Osei Agyeman Prempeh II and a number of ‘Nananom Amanhene’ which included Mampon, Juaben, Nsuta, Bekwai and Offinso to mention a few. This was the occasion of the Restoration of the Asante Confederacy. At this meet, some additionalbrules were set out by the chiefs present for land management, including specifically how land was to be shared between the usufructuary holder and the Stools when town expansion caught up with outskirt land. It is worth mentioning that today that system of sharing has received codification in the Land Act, 2020, Act 1036 in Section 50 (22) albeit in an enhanced percentage of 40 % as opposed to the traditional Asante 30 % of such land to the holder(s) of the usufructuary interest. In the book titled “ASANTE LANDS – A Practical Guide to Stool Land Acquisition and Documentation” written by Surveyors Nana Akwasi Prempeh, David Akubila and Kwaku Obeng Mireku published by Sedesel Publication in the year 2021, they set out the traditional apportionment of such land at pages 67-68.

The allodial ownership of land in Asante is vested in the stools and therefore the reference to traditional leadership in this paper shall be confined to that of our chiefs. Families have no capacity to make dispositions of urbanised land.

However, the chiefs cannot also make dispositions of urbanised lands without allotting a portion thereof to the families or individuals who hold the usufructuary interests therein. Community members access customary land through the acknowledged community custodian. Privately-held land is acquired sometimes directly from the stool or by purchase from a previous allottee.

The chief is deemed to hold the lands and other stool property in trust for the departed souls and for the benefit of present and future subjects of the stool. The source of the chief’s power and authority is his enstoolment, occupation symbolised by ancestral, consecrated stools which are the Black Stools so named in reference to the blackening process by which previous departed occupants thereof are symbolically immortalised. The chiefs have the jurisdictional management and control over their stool lands. They also exercise political rights in terms of the constitutional and hierarchical relationship between their stools and their subordinate ones.

According to J.B Danquah in his book “Akan law and Customs”, among the Asantes, the symbol of authority of the traditional ruler is the stool. The occupant of the stool is the political, cultural and spiritual head of his community. The stool confers divine leadership on the occupant who derives all right to rule from the position he has come to occupy. His status and position are elevated above every other in the community. His person is inviolable. There is a belief in the after-world and the perpetuity of the stool. Thus, the traditional concept of the perpetuity of the stool dove-tails with the position of the law that a stool has legal personality being a corporation sole as decided in the case of AMANKWA v KYERE (1963) 1 GLR 409.

In QUARM vs YANKAH II [1930] I WACA page 80 at 83 it was held: “The conception of the stool that it is and has always been accepted in the courts of this colony is that it is an entity which never dies, a corporation sole like the crown, and that while the occupants of the stool may come and go the stool goes on forever.”

The institution of Chieftaincy is duly recognised under the laws of Ghana. Chapter 22 of the 1992 Republic Constitution is devoted to Chieftaincy, together with the traditional councils as established by customary law and usage are therein guaranteed.

Article 270 (2) (b) stipulates that Parliament shall have no power to enact any law which in any way detracts or derogates from the honour and dignity of the institution of chieftaincy.

Article 277 of the 1992 Constitution defines a chief as “a person who, hailing from the appropriate family and lineage, has been validly nominated, elected or selected and enstooled, enskinned, or installed as a chief or queen mother in accordance with the relevant customary law and usage. This definition is re-echoed in section 57 of the Chieftaincy Act, 2008, Act 759.

Section 45 of the Chieftaincy Act provides that ‘’In addition to the consent and concurrence of the Lands Commission required by clauses (3) and (4) of Article 267 of the Constitution a transaction purporting to alienate or pledge stool property whether movable or immovable is voidable unless made or entered into with the consent of the Traditional Council concerned.

The Traditional Councils are creatures of statute established by section 12 (1) of the Chieftaincy Act. The section provides: “There shall be a Traditional Council in each area”. The position of the Kumasi Traditional Council is captured in section 13 (1) read along subsection 13 (2). Section 13 (1) reads: “The Paramount Chief of a Traditional area or in the case of the Kumasi Traditional Area, the Asantehene, shall be the President of the Traditional Council”. Let me state here that I am an unabashed apologist of Asante chieftaincy and must state that Kumasi’s chieftaincy structure as a Council existed in accordance with customary laws for hundreds of years before the advent of legislation.

The chiefs who constitute the membership of the Kumasi Traditional Council hold various degrees of authority in respect of stool land. At the pinnacle of traditional governance in Kumasi is the Asantehene, occupant of the Golden Stool. The Golden Stool customarily is the allodial owner of all lands in the Kumasi Traditional Area by reason of historical arrangements. The divisional chiefs or the ‘Abrempon’ as they are more accurately called all belong to one division (Fekuo) or the other, according the traditional role they performed in days of old during war-time.

Hence you have the Fekuo of ‘Kontire and Akwamu’,‘Adonten’,‘Kyidom’,‘Gyaase’,’Nifa’,’Benkum’, ‘Ankobea’, ‘Manwere and the ‘Akyeame’ just to mention a few. They hold the sub-allodial interest in their stool lands and act as caretaker chiefs for the Golden Stool by reason of their jurisdictional management and control of those lands. Those subservient to the Abrempon (plural) are the ‘Adikro’ stools. They directly superintend over the towns and villages under the jurisdiction of the Obrempon (sing.) for and on behalf of the overlord Abrempon stools. They are required to report to their overlord on all matters affecting the management of the stool land. All allocations by an ‘Odikro’ must be done in the name of the caretaker stool. Such allocations require the express approval of or ratification by the overlord and is evidenced by the issuance of an allocation note. Some examples of the caretaker stools in the Kumasi Traditional Area are the Konadu Yiadom Stool (Asantehemaa), Bantama Stool, Akwamu, Asokore-Mampong, Adumasa Stool, Baaye Siakwan (Kaase) Stool, Atasomanso and Tafo Stool to mention a few.

A unique and remarkable traditional entity which also has management and control over the lands is the King’s Consorts called ‘Ahenyere’. These are wives (or successors-in-title of wives) of previous occupants of the Golden Stool to whom land was gifted and attached to their stools by virtue of their marriages to the Asantehene they were married to. These lands are managed by them as their stool lands as caretaker chiefs for and on behalf of the Golden Stool. The most senior of them I am told, is the occupant of the Hia-Topre Stool of Ayigya. Other Ahenyere with their own stool lands include the Brempomaa stool (of the Kumasi Apagya family, the Takyiaw Stool of Atonsu, Oniwaa Tuapem of Duase, Agyeiwaa Bota of Duase, Akyiaa Panin Stool of Apatrapa, Ago-Manu Stool of Adumasa), Huahi Stool of Boadi, Kosikyi of Gyinyasi and the Adomaa Stool of Bomso. As the holders of the sub-allodial interest, alienations made by the caretaker chiefs have to be confirmed by the Allodial interest holder that is the Golden Stool acting per Asantehene.

It is amazing how urbanisation has transformed our social and economic lives. One of my fond memories of growing up as a child was the pleasurable trips my father would take my mother, my siblings (then born) and me in the mid 1970’s to Santasi to buy foodstuffs at a place near Opoku Ware Secondary School (as it was called in those days). Famers from nearby villages would come to sell their farm produce. My parents went there to buy foodstuffs because the prices were cheap than in what was properly Kumasi. I suppose those villages were Santasi itself, Kotwi, Nkoransa, Trede, Heman and such other villages which today have all become urbanised and are no longer farming communities. Finding green vegetative cover in these areas today, I suppose, is a veritable challenge as one would only now find forests composed of brick and mortar.

ROLE OF TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP

Land Management in the Kumasi Traditional Area goes back several hundreds of years preceding the colonial era while land administration in the Kumasi Traditional Area dates back to 1943. The Asantehene’s Lands Secretariat was established pursuant to the promulgation of the Kumasi Town Ordinance in 1943 (Cap 143). Section 16 of CAP 143 provides that: “The Asantehene shall establish an office wherein shall be transacted and recorded all dealings with land under the Stool”. Thus, was how the Asantehene’s Lands Secretariat was birthed.

In his book “An Introduction to Customary Land Secretariats in Ghana” Gad A. Akwensivie at page 61 states unequivocally that “the Asantehene Lands Secretariat has been found to be the most active customary land Secretariat in Ghana”. It therefore goes without saying that the capacity to play an enhanced role in the land management has been built over the years.

However statutory and constitutional provisions have derogated from and placed constraints on the full exercise by our traditional leaders of their rights and powers of customary land management.

The current Land Act, 2020 Act 1036 in section 14 makes provision for the establishment and building the capacity of local customary land secretariats to manage land issues at the traditional level.

In Kumasi, the process of land acquisition from a Stool starts with the issue of an Allocation Note in the name of the grantee, when a grant is made. A site plan is also issued on which the land allotted will be delineated. In the book: “ASANTE LANDS – A Practical Guide to Stool Land Acquisition and Documentation” referred to above at page 75 in paragraph 1 thereof, they liken the Allocation Note “to an administrative memo from the Caretaker chiefs to the Office of the Asantehene (the Asantehene’s Land Secretariat) informing Asantehene of a land allocation that has taken place. Since the 1920s, Caretaker Chiefs have used Allocation Notes to fulfil this customary obligation.”

The Allocation Note which is also a document unique to Kumasi, is NOT a document of title. This was the legal position set out by the Supreme Court in the case of BOATENG v MANU (2008-2009) SCGLR 658. The Supreme Court’s position was that the Allocation Note in its typical format lacks the formal requirements of a valid conveyance of an interest such as stating the nature of the interest being granted, the consideration and a term of years.

Given that a Stool is a corporate sole, why then do we have some new occupants of stools demanding that allottees should acquire new allocation notes because their predecessor has ‘’ gone to the village’’ or has been destooled or abdicated?

Sometimes the reason proferred for demanding that allottees should contract the new occupant is the signature on the allocation is not the deed of their predecessor. At other times the ruse is that the allottee requires a new allocation note because the signature on the existing allocation note is forged or scanned onto it. The defence of non est factum is wielded as a sword and employed in aid of denying the validity of a grant made to an allottee. I will grant that sometimes the allegation of scanned signatures is well-founded as when a Stool becomes vacant some unscrupulous individuals who have association with the Stool take advantage and make wrongful and unlawful alienations of land belonging to that Stool. They do the scanning. Invariably to avoid detection of such scanned signatures, some such allottees when applying for leases, present photocopies of such allocation notes and claim they have misplaced the original.

I humbly advise Nananom who have been unjustifiably demanding that allottees should obtain new allocation notes simply because there is a new Stool occupant, that their position is legally untenable.

What they also fail to realise is that in issuing new allocation notes, the policy that places limits on the term that can be granted to a lessee depending on the user of land, is breached. This is on account of the fact that at the time when a lease is to be engrossed, the commencement date of is used in calculating the term becomes that on the date of the allocation. For instance, in the case of residential user, the term granted is Ninety-nine years. In the event that the grantee has already been in possession of the particular piece of land for twenty years, they end up enjoying the land then for One Hundred and Nineteen years in the first instance.

The reason for the impugning of grants made by predecessors of a chief is financial as will be set out hereunder.

The question sometimes posed by people and indeed is a misconception held by certain members of the public is can families in Asante and for their matter in the Kumasi Traditional Area can make grants in respect of urbanised lands in which they held the usufructuary interest for all types of use.

While it is correct that the usufructuary interest is potentially perpetual in nature, the rights or incidents which attach to that interest do not include the power to allocate urbanised stool land or plots and issue allocation notes to allottees. Customary tenure systems still dominate in Kumasi. With increasing urbanisation and the attendant pressures on land, families (wrongfully so) are alienating land for development and transferring land to non-subjects of the Stools whose subjects they are. While some chiefs are prepared to ratify these grants by issuing allocation notes to such persons, it comes at a cost. There also exists the practical problem where no development plans or planning schemes are prepared before these transfers are made and it also becomes practically difficult to ratify these transfers if the plot will eventually not receive favourable planning comment, if it is incapable of being incorporated in a future planning scheme.

Nananom undoubtedly can contribute towards economic growth and building a strong competitive economy. They can do this by ensuring that sufficient land of the right type is available in the right places and at the right time to support growth and innovation. They can help and identifying the co-ordinating development requirement; contribute to protecting and enhancing our natural and developed environment while helping to improve bio-diversity, using natural resources wisely minimising waste and pollution. They can also help with social inclusion, by supporting strong, vibrant and healthy commitments by providing the supply of land for housing required to meet the needs of present and future generations and by creating a high quality of development with accessible local services that reflect the community needs and support its healthy social and cultural well-being.

Land is an indispensable factor of wealth creation. The challenge of sustainable development is to move forward in such a way that every single one of our people will be able to enjoy a substantial quality of life without being detrimental to natural resources. To improve our long-term economic well-being and quality of life, traditional leadership undoubtedly has a significant role to play in Land Management.
The 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana in Article 267 (1) vests all stool lands in the appropriate stools on behalf of, and in trust for the subjects of the stools in question in accordance with customary law and usage. Stools hold their lands in trust for their communities including their ancestors, living members and FUTURE GENERATIONS. Distribution of land rights within customary land holdings is determined by traditional rules.

The formal law governing stool land rights and interests include the 1992 Constitution, the Lands Commission Act, 2008, Act 767, the Land Act, 2020 Act 1036 and The Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands Act, 1994, Act 481 as well as other subsidiary legislation. Provision is made in these statutes for the frameworks for the management of stool and skin lands, though primarily focused on financial management of customary lands providing for the collection and distribution of revenues, rents, dues, royalties and other payments whether in the nature of income or capital from stool lands. The Act as well Article 267 (7) also requires the Office to co-ordinate with other land sector agencies and traditional authorities on matters related to administration and development of stool and skin land. The Constitution describes the nature of customary land ownership as a social trust.

CHALLENGES

The problems involved in land management are diverse.

The scope of the land Act is to amend and consolidate previous enactments on land into a single law, with a view to ensuring sustainable land administration and management and effective and efficient land tenure. It introduces some reforms.

Customary authorities have voiced frustration with regard to the percentage of the revenues/incomes collected by the Office of Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL) and what is paid to them as their share of the revenue because their expectations of a high level of physical and social infrastructural development are practically not met and yet Fifty-five percent out the Ninety percent of Stool land revenue allotted to the stools and goes to the Municipal and District Assemblies to the latter by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution and the OASL Act.

This is where I would like us to examine whether the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands is functioning effectively in its legal mandate of collecting rents in respect of stool land. The scope of the Land Act is to revise and consolidate previous enactments on land into a single law, with a view to ensuring sustainable land administration and management and effective and efficient land tenure.

Section 14 (1) of the Land Act, 2020 Act 1036 makes provision for the creation of Customary Land Secretariats for the management of communal lands belonging to stools, skins and where applicable clans and families. The section reads: “A stool or skin or clan or family that owns lands shall in' accordance with this Act, establish a Customary Land Secretariat as prescribed by Regulations made under this Act for the management of its land.”

The sources of funds of a Customary Land Secretariat as stipulated by Section 18 (1) of the Land Act: are a portion of the land revenue paid to the landowning stool or skin and the traditional authority by the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands, a portion of the revenue paid to the District Assembly by the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands which portion is to be determined by the Lands Commission and the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands in agreement with the stool and the District/Municipal Assembly.

The functions of the Office of the Administration of Stool Lands set out in Article 267 is repeated in Section 1 of the OASL Act, 1994, Act 481. Section 9 of Act 481 also charges the Administrator of Stool Lands and the Regional Lands Commission to consult with the stools and other traditional authorities in matters relating to the administration and development of stool land and to make available to them the relevant information and data. Are these engagements being done?

RECOVERY OF GROUND RENTS

This is not intended to knock the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands but it is a fact that ground rents’ payment is allowed to be in arrears for periods ranging from ten to thirty years. It would appear from personal experience that ground rents payable in respect of stool lands occupied by lessees are left to accumulate. People are more sensitised about and comply more with the obligation to pay property rate. I have personally been consulted on a number of occasions by persons who have been served with demand notices for ground rent. An examination of these demand notices reveals ground rent arrears outstanding for more than six years. Meanwhile the law mandates ONLY the OASL to collect rents in respect of Stool lands. Actions to recover arrears of rent after the expiration of six (6) years from the date on which the arrears become due are barred by section 9 of the Limitations Act 1972, NRCD 54.

Doing a balancing act between the desire to be a good citizen and acting in the interest of my clients then becomes necessary. I will confess that I have called in aid this provision on limitations in negotiating a downward review of penalties and interest charged on such arrears, of course after making full disclosure to my client on the legal defence open to them and prevailing on them to be patriotic. Some of these arrears are not accrued by the present derivative owners but could date back to periods ranging from 10 – 30 years.

Is it time to amend the law to empower Nananom to do these collections subject to the necessary safeguards being put in place to avoid misapplication and misappropriation of these rents? I do not pretend to know the challenges the OASL faces that does not allow for demand and effective timely pursuit of payment of these rents. The failure to collect the ground rents is however a fact and undoubtedly a source of revenue leakage.

All entities, all groupings including professional ones have their fair share of bad nuts. It is a fact that some traditional leaders conduct themselves in undignified ways trampling on and abusing people’s land rights. Some act in a manner bordering on criminality and in some cases engage in acts of downright criminality.

The wrongful and unlawful acts of some chiefs, in my humble, considered opinion, is no justification to throw away such the proverbial baby of chieftaincy away in an aqueous solution of opprobrium. Chieftaincy forms part of our cultural heritage as a people. For various reasons, including some rooted in personal religious conviction, eligible members of a royal family may decline election and enstoolment as occupant of stools which belong to their families. Nonetheless others also in the interest of preserving their birth-rights and family interests desire to ascend to the position of chief. One cannot begrudge them. The demands of their position, office and status of chiefs imposes financial obligations upon them. An aspect of the demands stems from the myriad social obligations imposed on them.

I do not need to belabour the point about the importance, pomp and circumstance that go with and are attached to the funeral industry here in Kumasi. For example, ask any of our chiefs here present and they will tell you one of the events that is a drain on their finances, is the number of funerals they are invited to in their capacity as stool occupants that they have to attend or delegate representatives to attend on their behalf. They are expected not only to attend, but also make the customary “Nsanwa” donation at these funerals. Sometimes on a given day, the invitations are to as many as five funerals. Everyone here, at least the majority of us here present, will attest to is the beauty and wealth of Asante chieftaincy. The orderliness, the stateliness, the pomp and pageantry, the near-military precision (undoubtedly due to its warrior history and antecedents) of the said institution. We all can attest to how we bristle with pride when we see our Asante chiefs decked out in their traditional finery.

By the very nature of their status, history and protocols our chiefs do not move or rule in isolation. Their status hinges among other things, upon the numerical strength of their subjects, courtiers and attendants. This comes with costs as all of these people must be catered for in some financial measure. Some of these attendants and courtiers serve the chiefs daily on a full-time basis and are adults with families or dependants who they have to maintain. Present day socio-economic developments and urbanisation have made living more sophisticated, a far cry from the simple living of yore. It goes without saying like most family men, these courtiers and attendants in present times have to pay for the costs of education for their children and/or wards, utilities (not much different from an earlier era when finding money for kerosene the source of energy and lighting obviously would also have been a concern as a living cost), medical bills, clothing and food to say the least. Some of them in an era gone by would have food crop farms for their subsistence and in cases also have cultivated cocoa farms as a source of annual revenue.
I dare say that for the Stools the only source of income or revenue is the proceeds from the alienation or dispositions of Stool land called “drink-money”.

How do our chiefs bear the financial cost of maintaining the members of their revenue who by reason of their services to the Stool they are disabled from engaging in earning livelihoods?

This where the demand for lessees to obtain new allocation notes surfaces as an ugly spectre. The demands are made with a new to generating revenue to support the stool of the occupant in his position as a chief. I suggest that a better, legally justifiable way is for our chiefs to ensure that their allottees beyond the issuance of allocation notes actually take steps to get leases engrossed in their names. Thus, the exigible ground rent will be stated in the leases document and the lessee come under liability to pay same. In cases where title registration is applicable, they should also ensure their lessees comply with the mandatory requirement of title registration.

The demands of their chiefly office have resulted in some of our chiefs having to resign from lucrative employment and the prominent positions they occupied in such employment, such as with the United Nations, international medical and financial institutions. Some have also had to take a break from or back seat in their professional activities in order to be able to perform adequately, the functions and duties required of them in their role as chief. The cynical question may be posed who has asked them to abandon their occupations and professions? Why have they not made sustainable investments with the proceeds realised from the grants of stool land? Such questions are unproductive given that we have a demographic whose activities and constitutionally-guaranteed existence impacts on our socio-economic life and the goal of sustainable development.

The reality is that these chiefs have accepted the positions of honour conferred on them by their selection and enstoolment and have inherited a system where their predecessors who may not have had the enlightening benefit of financial investment knowledge by reason of their limited education or a lack of formal education or exposure have not established any such sustainable investments for the maintenance and development of their stools. How is the situation to be addressed moving forward particularly for Stools whose lands have all been alienated as a result of improper management of their lands?

According to Rattray in his book: “Asante Law and Constitution” at page 173, he writes:

“... a chief never regarded his tenure of office as a possible occasion in which he might enrich himself. In Chapter XIV titled: “Sources of Revenue and System of Finance” he lists some of the sources of revenue of a Head Stool as death duties (ayibuadie), court fines and fees (Aseda), trading, Blood money (Atitodie) mining among other sources. He states in relation to mining at page 166: “...In a division where gold was found, mining was as it is now, a valuable source of revenue. The actual tenant on whose land the gold pits were worked generally took one-third of the proceeds, the remainder going to the Head-chief.”

Again, at page 172, Rattray writes:

“...the sharing out of the Aseda (the Court fines and fees) to show how such payments never really enriched the chief or indeed any single individual but were redistributed, sometimes in what would be considered negligible amounts among elders, palace attendants and even strangers and hangers-on at the Chief’s court. This was really the manner in which court officials were paid. Some of these official, the more important of the elders also had their own villages and held their own courts and would receive their share of such fees, not as elders but in their capacity of chiefs, in turning sharing out the remainder among their subordinates. The prominent feature of the whole system was that sums of money received in this manner were almost immediately re-distributed among a larger number of persons. Even that sum taken by the Head Stool as its individual share was not long in finding its way back again among its subjects. The Chief never paid for anything: weavers, metal workers, Stool carvers, while working for the chief would feed at his expense and before they left would receive “Aseda” corresponding approximately to the market value of their wares. The revenue collected was thus always circulating; even a powerful Stool was not really rich in capital upon which it could lay hands at a moment’s notice. A Stool’s wealth was potential and lay in the prosperity of its subjects...”.

Life in the era covered by Rattray was far simpler than now. The economy was simple. Now the costs of living run high. While an attendant or court official in those days perhaps did not need to pay electricity tariffs, they probably also had to worry about how to find money to pay for kerosene for their lighting and energy needs.

I trust I will not hear any voices of dissent if I said our needs have become more myriad, complex and sophisticated. Financing formal education was not a source of worry as formal education was not deemed necessary for farming and other vocations people were engaged in. Now however, these same attendants and courtiers would have to be concerned with educating their children and/or wards, clothing them not in simple 2/3 yard-pieces of cloth of the days of old worn as “collar” but in western-type clothing if not western clothing.

With the advent of modern government arrangements, it is central government that gets the estate duty paid in our courts in respect of the estates of deceased persons. Filing fees are paid to government through the Judicial Service in the registries of our courts. Article 125(3) vests the judicial power of Ghana in the Judiciary, which organ of government by virtue of Article 125 (5) has jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal.
While due recognition is given to our customary law adjudication in the form of customary arbitration on account of our plural legal system, it is a fact that a significantly high number of citizens and residents in Ghana elect to pursue litigation in our courts as established by constitutional and statutory provisions. Our traditional leaders have no jurisdiction to adjudicate on criminal matters for them to be getting Atitodie revenue. We all know now that by virtue of Article 257(6) of our 1992 Republican Constitution every mineral in its natural state in, under or upon any land in Ghana, rivers, streams, water course throughout Ghana, the exclusive economic zone and any area covered by the territorial sea or continental shelf is the property of the Republic is the property of the Republic of Ghana is vested in the President on behalf of, and in trust for the people of Ghana. The revenue for mining is thus no longer available to our chiefs.

Nananom move with retinues of varying sizes when the occasion demands. The sizes of these retinues are supposed to befit their status. When Nananom don their chiefly garb literally and figuratively they move with their umbrella carriers, the palanquin bearers, the drummers and other supportive traditional office holders in tow. They do wear casual every day clothing and I must say some of them have impressive and impeccable fashion sense. It is a delight to meet for instance Nana Sawuahene in all his sartorial elegance sometimes on a flight to Accra. One just would have to do a double-take, wondering was that the chief I know? How are all these people to be catered for? Is it that our chiefs now need to do away with their retinues and elaborate court systems and protocol? How are our chiefs to be assisted to develop business modules for the development and maintenance of their stools, villages and townships. What happens when upon enstoolment, the chief does not even have land available for alienation because his predecessors had already made total dispositions of same?

What programmes and policies are being designed to take care of this section of our demographic in line with meeting the targets of Goal One of the SDGs aimed at eradicating poverty, because indeed some of these people are impecunious and need to be empowered financially. It is some of such persons who also tend to capitalise on the vacancy of stools and engage in illegal and wrongful allocations of stool land protracted litigation ensues over the selection of a new stool occupant. Some of them start out as young boys and with the natural progression of time transition into adulthood. Sometimes even in the reign of an incumbent occupant some subjects, courtiers and attendants engage in fraudulent land transactions.

Eradicating poverty in all forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. While the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than half between 1990 and 2015, too many are still struggling for the most basic human needs. The statistics put out by the UNDP is that as of 2015 about 736 million people still lived on less than US $ 1.90 a day, many lack food, clean drinking water and sanitation.
One of the targets of the Goal One which is on poverty, is to ensure that by the year 2030 all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other firms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services including micro-finances.

The question may be posed what about the revenue provision made for the stools in our 1992 Republican Constitution?

Article 267(2) makes provision for the establishment of the Office the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL). The functions of the OASL include the collection of all such rents, dues, royalties, revenues or other payments whether in the nature of income or capital and to account for them to the beneficiaries specified in Article 267 clause (6).

Of the revenue collected, Ten percent of the revenue accruing from stool lands shall be paid to the OASL to cover administrative expenses, and of the remaining revenue Twenty-five percent to the stool through the traditional authority for the maintenance of the stool in keeping with its status and twenty percent to the traditional authority. The old forms of revenue are no longer available to the stools. By constitutional and legal arrangements, stools’ revenue sources have now been reduced to only a part of stool land revenue. The bulk now goes to our District Assemblies with the allocation of to them of Fifty-five per cent out of the Ninety per cent remainder of the stool land revenue allotted to them and the stools.

ROLE OF TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP

While not holding brief for Nananom as I do not presume nor pretend to hold that brief, I respectfully and humbly wish to draw attention that Nananom are very much a part of our demographic and deserve attention. Goal One of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for an end to poverty in all its forms everywhere. Goal 1 of the SDGs aims at the eradication of poverty. How are we achieving this Goal?
Nananom should also realise that when they allow their grantees to build without obtaining leases, they deprive themselves of revenue in the form of ground rent. The OASL is to be commended on that front because sometimes, it issues demand notices in respect of developed properties even though the grantees of those pieces of stool land on which the properties are developed have not taken the requisite steps to acquire leases.

The right of Nananom to collect “drink money” in respect of grants made by them of their Stool land has not been taken away as they hold the lands in accordance with customary land tenure laws established years ago. The practical reality is the quantum of “drink money” in current times in some cases is equal to the economic value of the land. In the book “ASANTE LANDS - A Practical Guide to Stool Land Acquisition and Documentation” co-authored by Nana Akwasi Prempeh (Manhyiahene of Kumasi and a former Liaison Officer of the Asantehene’s Lands Secretariat), David Akubila and Kwaku Obeng Mireku they write at page 61 in reference to “drink-money: “…. Consequently, “drink money” is now akin to premium, consideration, value or price for land”. Are Nananom acting in breach of the law when they collect these sums? Land markets have created opportunities for capable investors to acquire land for various user.

Planning and Development Control

GOAL 11 of the SDGs is on Sustainable Cities and Communities.

A significant number of us live in the cities. According to UNDP statistics by 2050, two-thirds of all humanity – about 6.5 billion people will be urban or what will be attempted to pass off or masquerade as urban. Sustainable development cannot be achieved without significantly transforming the way we build and manage our urban spaces. The rapid growth of cities as a result of rising population and increasing migration has led to a boom in the development of cities, especially in the developing world. As a result of massive rural-urban migration slums are becoming a more significant feature of urban life.

Making cities sustainable means creating career and business opportunities, safe and affordable housing and building resilient societies and economies. It involves investment in public transport, creating open public spaces and improving urban planning and management in participating and inclusive ways.

The Goal’s targets are that by 2030, all should have access to adequate safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums. By 2030 to enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanisation and capacity for participating, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries.

Section 83 of the Local Governance Act, 2016, Act 936 sets out the planning functions of a District Planning Authority. Specifically, section 83 (a) provides that the Assembly shall initiate and prepare district development plans and settlement structure plans in the manner prescribed by the National Development Planning Commission. Subsection 83 (b) provides that the District Assemblies shall ENSURE that the district development plans and the settlement structure plans are prepared with the full participation of the local community. Question is how are the local communities being involved in the preparation?

Talking to planners they will tell you that one of their biggest sources of concern is the issue of undisciplined physical development which leads to non-compliance with planning schemes and the lack of political will to enforce compliance with permitting laws. They also cite logistics, lack of vehicles and/ lack of fuel to undertake development control exercises. With the expansion of urbanised lands, settlements are being uprooted. They also complain that our some of our chiefs work with surveyors sometimes unlicensed ones to prepare planning schemes. By the time these schemes are submitted to the Planning Offices of the Municipal or District Assembly grants would have been made, while development may have occurred and it then becomes difficult to rectify such schemes. Our Assemblies have legislative power to make by-laws in respect of building, sanitation and environment. These same Assemblies have executive powers as well to plan for the overall development of their districts or municipalities.

Nananom could also assist informally by ensuring compliance with statutory planning schemes. The allocation notes instead of requiring allottees to commence and complete development of lands granted to them within periods ranging from two-three years, should rather be amended to require them to obtain leases and building/development permits within reasonable periods BEFORE building is commenced. Section 103 of the Local Governance Act is also an important provision which has legal effect on land allocation. It provides that an allocation of land shall be null and void if the purpose or use for which the allocation is made is contrary to an approved Development plan. This statutory provision appears to re-echo the provisions of Article 267 (3) of the 1992 Constitution.

In subsection 2 thereof, a landowner is also prohibited from sub-dividing or allocating land for use, development or occupation in a town, city or the suburb of a town or city in an area where there is an approved planning schemes except in consultation with the District Planning Authority. People should beware of the acquisition or grants of “half-plots”, “quarter plots” and the like, whatever those sizes are meant to convey.
Sub-section 3 criminalises non-compliance with subsections (1) and (2). However power is reserved by subsection 4, in the District Planning Authority to revise approved Development Plans to accommodate a proposed non-conforming allocation if it is satisfied that the accommodation or revision is in the public interest.

Nananom traditionally have been very accessible in terms of efficient Alternative Dispute Resolution. This has not always proved to be the case. Non-compliance with the rules of natural justice, delays in resolution of land disputes have led to disillusionment and a lack of confidence in traditional dispute resolution processes, particularly in relation to land.

I would be the first to agree that in terms of expeditious resolution of some land disputes, our chiefs would have been the go-to forum. As recently as five days ago I learnt of a story where a squatter/caretaker living in an uncompleted premises had dug a hole directly behind the perimeter fence-wall of a neighbouring property and had been using that hole for purposes of attending to nature’s call. Another neighbour, outraged by the nuisance being perpetrated decided to inform the property owner whose property was being desecrated and dishonoured in such manner of the offensive situation. Apparently, the situation had been going on for two months and her attempts to stop the nuisance had failed. A phone call from the property owner to elders of the stool received quick response. They immediately went to the scene and caused the hole to be filled up.
In an incredible turn of events, the offender who I am told, holds herself out as a pastor subjected the stool elders to a volley of unprintable invectives and startling vitriolic diatribe on the justification that the hole had been dug in the road which she termed public property or as she was reported to have put it government property. She even invoked curses upon them. I am informed that to the credit of the stool elders who did not respond in a like intemperate manner, they ignored her and went their way. The property owner also reported the matter to the police who went to the scene on account of her offensive conduct. Upon being questioned by the police, her mind-boggling response was that the owner of the property in which she was squatting had refused to allow them to dig the hole on his property for use by her and members of her household as a toilet.

The question that I ask is where is the development control from our District Assemblies as required by sections 94 of Act 936?
Barely a week ago, I stumbled in on a meeting at a particular public office here in Kumasi, where representatives of a Residents’ Association had gone seeking some information. Their story related with passionate, righteous indignation revolved around the not uncommon story of a change in the planned user of a parcel of land. The Government of Ghana had acquired from the Stool which owned the land and fully provided customary “drink money” by issuing a check for the same. The gravamen of their complaint was that the incumbent occupant of the Stool, notwithstanding documentary evidence available to him, had acting in collusion with the Municipal Assembly changed the designated user as a hospital of a 10.64-acre parcel of land to residential. According to the residents the site originally had been used as a Faecal Treatment Plant. In the course of time the plant posed a risk to human health and the Residents’ Association petitioned for the removal of same. Subsequently the site was earmarked for development into a hospital intended to promote and assure access to quality health-delivery as opposed to the facility that rather threatened their health. What they found even more upsetting was that the occupant of the stool claimed he had the support of superior traditional authority to so act? According to them, the chief claimed that he had reserved nine plots for development into a clinic. The question is: Did he really have such support? From the story the blame could not only be laid at the door-step of only the chief. It would appear the District Assembly was complicit in the matter.

The issue was if government had provided valuable consideration in making payment of “drink money” to the incumbent’s predecessor for the allocation to be made of the 110.64-acre parcel of land in favour of the Municipal Assembly, what steps did the Assembly as the agent for planning in the local government area do, especially to protect the interest of government and by extension that of the community? The residents’ story continues that certain officials of the Municipal Administration are all actors in the scheme that has robbed the community of an opportunity to have a hospital facility. They challenge the veracity of the claim that the nine plots supposedly reserved for the clinic were still available and maintain those plots have been developed by private developers for private residential user.

What are we doing to ourselves as a people?

As much as we like to demonise our chiefs, we, the ordinary citizens are as much to blame for indisciplined land use. The human capacity for destruction (of the environment) is just as phenomenal as its ability to build and create. Another aspect to the toilet story is that the offender was also dumping her rubbish against the wall. Given that our chiefs are or have their representatives, in the communities which are sometimes far removed from the District Planning Unit offices, could we also consider an amendment in the law empowering them to deal with such excessive deviant behaviour in the form of spot fines? Subject once again to the caveat that effective systems of monitoring and accounting should be put in place so such revenue is not misappropriated. In Kumasi customary tenure has undergone changes.

CONCLUSION

The current dominant political, social and economic systems favour short-term grains and quick fives at the expense of longer-term Planetary and human well-being and prosperity. The human capacity for destruction (of the environment) is just as phenomenal as its ability to build and create. We are always seeking to re-invent the wheel.

A significant shift is required in how we measure and value what matters to peoples and the planet. It is important to adopt a future generations approach in policy design as a way to achieve long-term sustainability and to examine how Ghana ultimately intends to embrace this approach in practice.

The Sustainable Development Goals otherwise called the Global Goals with its listed 17 objectives urgently call for action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The 17 SDGs are integrated -they recognise that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability. Countries have committed to prioritise progress for those who are further behind. The SDGs are designed to end poverty, hunger, AIDS and discrimination against women and girls. The creativity, know-how, technology and financial resources from all of society is necessary to achieve the SDGs in every context. The United Nations recognises that the SDGs can only be realised with strong global partnerships and co-operation. These partnerships for sustainable development are to be complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilise and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources to support the achievement of the SDGs in all countries, encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnership building in the experience and resourcing strategies or partnerships.

The Chinese are acquiring land in a rush to invest in what financial analysts see as a vast and related untapped African market.
Construction leads the way, giving up our farmland for the erection of buildings. Taken together, all these issues mean that the quest for ways and means to reform rationalise and secure land tenure systems should near the top of our planning agenda. Achieving these goals is a task of multi-layered complexity and difficulties.

This is where I will implore Nananom to have the sustainability of our very existence and that of future generations in mind as they manage our lands.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme a sustainably managed environment is a prerequisite for socio-economic development and poverty reduction. We need to focus on enhanced support for implementing effective and targeted capacity building in developing countries to support national plans to implement all the sustainable goals.

I conclude by quoting the United Nations Secretary-General’s words and appealing to Nananom with all due deference that the choices you make or fail to make today could result in breakdown or a breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future. The choice is yours to make or fail to make either for a further breakdown and a future of perpetual crises, or to a breakthrough to a better more sustainable peaceful future for our people and country.

What then shall our Agenda of action be in terms of achieving effective and sustainable land management? At the end of the day, it is about the struggle to meet the basic necessities of life, health, safety, peace, a vaccination against diseases, clean water to drink, a bowl of food or attaining opportunities for education.

How do we plan for and embrace growth while using resources more efficiently with utmost consideration of immediate and long-term benefits for our country and the humans who live in it?

I leave that for the consideration of us all.