Odupong Kpehe (C/R), May 11, GNA - The Odupong Kpehe Customary Land Secretariat (CLS) was inaugurated at Odupong Kpehe in the Central Region on Thursday to serve as the link between the land owning community and other stakeholders.

The Secretariat would also link applicants and the local Land Management Committee, the land owning community and the public sector land agencies.

The Secretariat, located at the chief's palace, was refurbished and supplied with furniture, a computer and accessories to facilitate its work at the cost of 100 million cedis.

Professor Dominic Fobih, Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, in his inaugural speech advised chiefs to be fair and transparent in dealing with land issues in their various local traditional areas. He said the Secretariat would provide information about the land owning community to the public, receive all correspondence on behalf of the Land Committee, keep and maintain accurate and up-to-date records of land dealings in the locality and prepare periodic reports on all activities of the Secretariat.

The Secretariat in addition to six others already inaugurated, formed part of pilot areas earmarked for the first phase of the Land Administration Project (LAP).

Prof. Fobih said CLS sought to strengthen and improve land management and administration in the country for local communities under the LAP to curb problems such as multiple sales of land, protracted disputes and other land related problems.

He said the CLS were being established as part of the Government's efforts to address the myriad of challenges facing the land sector in the country.

These, he said, included poor records keeping, indeterminate boundaries, multiple sales of lands and protracted land litigation, which had crowded the courts and thereby diverting enormous resources away from development projects.

Prof Fobih said these disputes increased transaction costs for doing business in Ghana and sometimes scared away investors and stressed on the need to put in a mechanism to address the issue effectively. Madam Theresa Amarley Tagoe, Deputy Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, said with the establishment of CLS, the Government and its agents would only recognise documents signed by the accredited chiefs and urged the public to avoid the services of middlemen when acquiring land. She said the relatively high demand for land for residential and commercial activities, the high rate of transformation of agricultural lands into non-agricultural land uses and the need to harmonise and control land use and development were some of the factors that were taking into account in selecting the areas.

She, therefore, urged the public to join hands with the Government and the traditional authorities to make the project a success. Nai Odupong Awushie Tetteh II, Chief of Odupong Faakor, commended the Government for choosing his traditional area as the seat of CLS for the entire Central Region and pledged his support in ensuring the smooth running of the project.