Cabinet has approved a request by the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to review, on a case-by-case basis, all public lands acquired across the country.
“Processes for the acquisition of state lands that were not completed before I took office have been cancelled outright. We want to protect our public lands,” the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Mr. Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, has said.
He further stated that efforts were underway to digitise land records to enhance effective land administration, while decentralising service delivery to all parts of the country.
Mr. Buah also said the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands and the Lands Commission were intensifying efforts to register all customary lands nationwide.
He added that the ministry was working to secure the country’s land boundaries through the Ghana Boundary Commission.
The minister made these remarks while briefing the Vice-President, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, during her working visit to the ministry in Accra yesterday.
Present at the meeting were the Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Yusif Sulemana; technocrats at the ministry; the Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission, Dr. Hugh C. A. Brown; and heads of other agencies under the ministry.
Mr. Buah described the visit as significant, saying it would motivate the ministry and its agencies to improve their performance.
Mining Sector
On the mining sector, the minister said efforts were being made to “turn all brown water into blue” by cracking down on illegal mining activities, particularly in water bodies.
He noted that the establishment of the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) had been a major intervention and had yielded considerable results in the fight against galamsey.
Mr. Buah also said regulatory reforms, including the review of the licensing regime in the small-scale mining sector, had sent positive signals of the government’s commitment to sanitising the industry.
He added that the revocation of Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 2462 was a clear signal that mining activities would not be permitted in forest reserves.
According to the minister, about 1,800 pieces of earth-moving equipment had been registered, many of which were currently being tracked. He also disclosed that approximately 1,600 river guards had been recruited to monitor illegal mining activities along river bodies.
Collaboration and Environmental Protection
The Vice-President, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, urged agencies under the ministry to deepen collaboration to ensure effective management of the country’s natural resources.
She said the natural resource sector was crucial to Ghana’s sustainable development and therefore required efficient management. She added that the government’s transformational agenda demanded that all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) align their activities to accelerate national development.
On environmental protection, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said sound environmental management was central to sustainable national development and must be pursued with urgency.
She described it as unacceptable that the country’s land, forest and water resources continued to be degraded through irresponsible mining practices, stressing that “protecting our environment is protecting ourselves, and all of us must be committed to working hard to safeguard these resources.”
The Vice-President further urged the minister to take steps to ensure that land was made available to women to enable them to actively engage in agriculture.
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