The 2024 Flagbearer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has unveiled plans to resolve long-standing land disputes in Ghana by offering free land registration for chiefs and digitising the land tenure system. 

According to Dr Bawumia, this initiative is part of a comprehensive strategy aimed at addressing the issues associated with land ownership and management.

During a meeting with the clergy in the Greater Accra Region, Dr Bawumia highlighted the prohibitive cost of registration fees as a significant barrier preventing chiefs from registering their lands, which often leads to ownership disputes. 

He stressed the importance of modernising the land tenure system to make land ownership information easily accessible and transparent.

Dr Bawumia pointed to examples from advanced countries where land ownership details are available online, underscoring the benefits of such a system for Ghana. 

He believes that digitising the land tenure system will not only reduce disputes but also enhance efficiency and trust in the process.

“Land in many countries, in the advanced world, if you want to know who owns the land, you can find it on your mobile phone, you don’t have to visit the land registry. So we are going to move to marking and digitalizing our land. So many land disputes come up because nobody really knows who owns the land.”

“Many people claim ownership, and one of the problems we have is that many of the stool lands are not registered. I found out that many of the chiefs find it difficult to pay the registration fee because it’s a bit expensive. So what am I going to do? We are going to provide free registration for all the chiefs," he said.