Accra, Aug 1, GNA-This year's Annual Land Surveyors' Seminar organized by the Land Surveying Division of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors (GhIS) has taken place in Accra, with a call on members to endeavour to put their services at the disposal of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies. Mrs. Esther Obeng-Dapaah, Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, who made the call said this would enable the Assemblies to embark on proper street naming exercises, to enhance "our address codes and the postal delivery system." The two-day Seminar, which took place from July 30 to 31, had "Managing Geo-Spatial Data to Enhance Democratic Governance", as its theme.

Mrs Obeng-Dapaah whose speech was read for her at the opening ceremony, noted with satisfaction that in the area of good governance, the assemblies would rely "on your expertise for their day-to-day developmental activities, especially in areas such as the collection of revenues and effective developmental control." The Minister disclosed that in the provision of mapping and surveying services, an estimated 100 companies in the country alone generated an annual revenue to the tune of about 1.5 billion dollars from geomatic-based activities. She pointed out that geo-spatial data were produced on continual basis by both the public and private sectors at an unprecedented fast rate in the country.

However, the Minister was quick to add that unless policies and procedures were formulated and implemented by the custodians of these data to ensure their archival preservation and continued availability to policy makers, industrialists, researchers and natural resources managers, among others, long-term access to the wealth of these data would be compromised. "Decisions on our economy, environment and society cannot only be based simply on current or recent data, temporal analysis is required to identify trends, evaluate impacts and make informed decisions for democratic governance."

Mrs Obeng-Dapaah stated that currently, government was pursuing many policy initiatives, strategies and programmes, to help eradicate poverty and improve the well-being of Ghanaians. "I have no doubt that Geographic Information System database will be a valuable source of data to the State's Planning Strategy for both policy development and implementation." She pledged that her ministry would readily support the efforts of members of GhIS in the management of geo-spatial data, because, "some of the benefits accruing from these endeavours are enormous." Mr. Edwin Addo-Tawiah, Division Chairman of GhIS, said as major players in the road, building and land management sectors of the national economy, surveyors "are to invest in new equipment and technologies in the local and foreign markets for effective and efficient production."

Mr. Addo-Tawiah pointed out that since the work of a land surveyor hinged on safety and security, the division was designing land surveyors' jackets for all qualified surveyors to enable the public to readily and easily identify who land surveyors were. During the programme, members were taken through lectures under topics including: "Land Records Management System for Conveyance Notification, Discharge and Record Tracking"; "Using Geographic Information System for Fire Fighting"; "Land Tenure Facilitation Activity: The Land Surveyor and Geo-Spatial Management" and "Multipurpose Cadastral System as a Source for Spatial Data."