General News of Thursday, 30 January 2003

Source:  

Institution of Surveyors condem attacks on members

The Ghana Institution of Surveyors (GIS) has condemned what they call savage attacks being launched on their members by members of the public, traditional leaders as well as opinion leaders, when surveyors are assigned officially or dispatched to an area to perform their duties.

The President of GIS, Mr. Benedict Amon Neequaye said Surveyors are not land owners, neither do they apportion lands, but rather the duty of a licensed surveyor is to demarcate boundaries and make surveys of lands as well as gather information and pass it on to the user agency.

Therefore, when these people are seen performing their duties they should not be seen as enemies to be visited with misguided hostility by people.

Mr. Neequaye said this at a Press Conference in Accra.

He revealed that due to the current widespread of indiscipline in the land market such as double sales of land and the operations of landguards, many have got the wrong impression that land surveyors own and apportion lands, hence the hostility meted against them.

Citing examples of the uncalled for attacks on their members, Mr. Neequaye said just last year more than five of his members were attacked brutally, those he claimed are still on Plaster of Paris (POP).

Asked what is his outfit doing to check these indiscipline in their job, the president revealed that plans are underway to give identification cards, numbers and names of licensed organizations to licensed surveyors to prevent quack surveyors from operating on peoples lands, an act he claimed leads to the frequent attacks on his members .

He therefore called on anyone who doubts the activity of a surveyor to crosscheck from the stated client, the claims of any surveyor before or after the provision of ID Cards as certain chiefs and opinion leaders use their own quack surveyors.

Mr. Neequaye called the media to assist his outfit to educate the public on these issues.