A systematic satellite land title office aimed at facilitating the process for property owners to register their properties with relative ease has been inaugurated in Accra. The pilot satellite office, sited at Cantonments falls under the Land Administration Project initiated by the Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines to ensure that all properties within the Labone and Cantonments residential areas were registered by the end of March this year as well as improve deeds and title registration in the country. The Project involves the systematic survey and preparation of plans for all the parcels of land in the area, a house-to-house exercise to request property owners to complete the registration forms, the publication of the application and the issuance of the title certificates to the property owners. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony, Ms Esther Obeng-Dapaah, the sector Minister, said the Project would help correct the current situation where title certificates were issued only when property owners presented their document to the Land Title Registry. Ms Obeng-Dapaah explained that the new project would provide the mechanism and methodology for developing efficient and cost effective registration system, adding that, it would help fill the gaps in the land title register and ensure security of title within particular areas. Ms Obeng-Dapaah announced that the Ministry had fixed a flat rate of 50 Ghana cedis to cover the entire process ranging from the presentation of application, actual registration, to the issuance of titles. She indicated that the second pilot facility was sited at Osu, to commence operation by February 18 this year, adding that plans were also far advanced to start a similar exercise in Kumasi. About seven property owners were presented with the land title certificate as the first people to benefit from the project. Nii Kpobi Tetteh Tsuru III, La Mantse, welcomed the reforms in the land sector and pledged to support the Project. He appealed to government to assist the traditional authorities to demarcate survey and register their boundaries, as a way of reducing the numerous cases of land litigation which was threatening the peace of the country.Source: GNA