Eastern Regional Director of Lands Commission, Alhaji Issah Mahama, has cautioned citizens against acquiring land without proper investigation and documentation.

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on land issues in the region, Alhaji Mahama called on people interested in acquiring lands to research and thoroughly investigate to find the actual owners of land before making payment.

He noted that most site plans attached to land documents are fake and did not conform to the Supervision and Approval of Plans and Regulation, 1988 (LI 1444), adding that some of the plans extracted from layouts in old documents attached for registration were not found in their systems.

“This is one of the issues which confronts us as an institution, you will see some of the plans in some old documents which are extracts from a planning scheme attached for registration”, he observed.

He, therefore, advised landowners to go through the appropriate procedures to register or update their land records especially, if the plan of the land did not conform with LI 1444 or recognised by the system.

Mr Alexander Attuah-Ntow, Senior Legal Officer and Registrar of Lands at the Eastern Regional Lands Commission disclosed that about 34 land cases involving the Lands Commission were pending before the high court.

“These are cases involving the Lands Commission between October 1, 2021, to May 18, 2022, legal year. We have been sued as defenders to provide clarity and verification”, he noted.

He observed that most landowners failed to register their lands due to the cost involved and relied on buyers to do the registration and that often created the problem because some family members take advantage of the delay and register in their names.