The Lands Commission in Ashanti Region has revealed a decline in court cases by 28 per cent at the end of 2019 working year.

During the period it delivered 92.72 per cent of the total number of applications received for land certificates.

Regional Lands Officer, Surveyor Stephen Oduro-Kwarteng, attributes the improvement to the adoption of a one-time payment of fees and the turnaround time for processing land documents.

“The general turnaround time for processing land documents and registration of land certificates, as well as the provision of valuation services, also got a boost resulting from the direct release of registrable documents.

He observed that improved staff attitude also contributed to this success story as the year recorded only few negative complaints from clients and the general public.

This he believes led to a steady decline of court cases by about 28 per cent.

Surveyor Oduro-Kwarteng spoke at a ceremony to award deserving workers of the commission and those due for retirement.

Total revenue for 2019, for instance, saw a marginal increase of 5.60 per cent which they attribute largely due to the relocation of the office from Adum to Danyame among others.

“The preparation of cadastral and parcel plans, for instance, improved tremendously; they are now done simultaneously to reduce the time and cost burden on our clients.

The distance and new location constituted a major stumbling block for our clients accessing our services. This notwithstanding, we recorded major gains in many sectors of our services”.

Surveyor Oduro-Kwarteng revealed plans to increase revenue collection on ground rent to improve revenue mobilization this year.

Besides the gains, the regional department of the commission is faced with challenges with staff attitude and supervision as well as rent-seeking behaviour of some of the staff which officials say, “we shall tirelessly do all we can to stop these negative practices”

“I must stress here that we are yet to reach our peak performance. We need to work harder on our revenue mobilisation, particularly ground rent collection as well as meeting the turnaround time for our services”, he added.

The event honoured hardworking workers and some retirees.

Twenty-two employees of the commission as part of the event were honoured.

Out of this thirteen were retirees since 2017, eight were employees in active service and one other person, Liberty Amamo, was given a special award.