Prospective land buyers have been advised to do a search of ownership at the Lands Commission on lands they intend to buy before making any financial commitments.

Alhaji Sulemana Mahama, Head of Policy Planning and Research at the Lands Commission, who gave the advice, said a search would help curb the increasing rate at which people fall at the allure of fraudsters parading as genuine land owners.

Alhaji Mahama gave the advice on Wednesday during a business forum on the National Planned City Extension in the Ningo-Prampram District which is aimed at unleashing the potential of national capital annex.

He said people should not be in a hurry to pay for lands without confirming the ownership as according to him, land is immovable therefore the seller and the buyer must be patient to go through due diligence.

He said in doing a search at the Commission is now easy as one only have to apply at the Customer Access Unit after which results should be ready within two working days.

He added that land buyers must also find out whether the land is a public land, customary land or private land to avoid litigation.

Alhaji Mahama said for instance a large number of plots of land in the Ningo-Prampram area are either state owned or vested in the government as they are to be used for irrigation and security purposes.

He also indicated that registration of land acquired must be taken seriously by the public, adding that the country's land laws stipulate that every land acquired to be used more than three years must be registered.

He called on authorities not to only plan towards the proposed city expansion but implement it to avoid creating the development of slums in the area.

According to him, from the colonial era to date, many development plans have been formulated for the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area, which has 16 metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies but unfortunately, they were not implemented fully.

Mr Kofi Yeboah, Ningo-Prampram District Head of the Town and Country Planning, said the district needs to plan ahead to absorb the population overflow from Tema and Accra as more people were relocating to the area.

Mr Yeboah mentioned some of the pull factors attracting more residents to the area is the proposed airport, the Tema-Togo highway, urbanisation, university among other things.

He said his outfit is proposing as part of the planned extension, second class roads to link the airport to the coastal areas, construction of more linking roads to reduce traffic on the highway, a solar and a wind farm to provide alternative electricity for residents.

Under the plan, there would also be an agricultural area, ecotourism around the beaches in the district, while designated areas would be given for low, medium and high rise buildings.

He said the forum was part of the processes to gather the needed data for the proposed plan adding that the Assembly would be mapping all lands in the district.

Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, Member of the Presidential Priority Task force and Member of Parliament for the Ningo-Prampram, said the project is still at the concept stage as the actual plan is yet to be finalised.

Mr Mensah said consultation with stakeholders would continue to help address issues that would arise from the planned expansion.

Mr Rene Dogbe, Group Task Manager at Erith Sites, in a presentation, alerted business operators on the effect of their activities on the ozone layer and how they contributed to global warming.

Mr Dogbe called on the district assemblies to clear the roads of unauthorised structures as waiting for it to worsen would lead to the payment of huge compensation.