Minority members of Parliament’s Lands and Forests Committee have accused the government of hiring land guards to reclaim and preserve government lands.
According to the group, the discovery was made by the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Professor Patrick Agbesinyale, at a meeting with the Committee.
According to the Minority, Prof. Agbesinyale alleged that even the police and military hired a land guard to recover and safeguard government lands for a fee, in violation of the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act.
Speaking to the media, Alhassan Suhuyini, the Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament’s Lands and Forests Committee, criticised the government’s lack of commitment to combating land guard actions.
“One would think that with the passage of this law outlawing land guards, our land tenure system would have been sanitised, and we would all have been hopeful that acquiring land would no longer be a matter of life and death, so it came as a surprise to us that the Ministry has resorted to contracting a land guard to protect government lands.”
The other shocking revelation according to the Chief Director is that even the Ghana Armed Forces and the Police use this same land guard to protect their lands. So, if the military and the police cannot protect their own lands and have to resort to the use of a land guard, then what will be the fate of the common Ghanaian who wants to acquire land and is faced with land guards?”
“What was again scandalous by the Chief Directors’ revelation is that this particular land guard has a set-up the state cannot compete,” Mr. Suhuyini added while asking for investigations to be launched to unravel the dealings of this land guard as it is alleged his actions have led to some death.
