The Government has launched the first Ghana Land Information Bank Directory with the hope that prospective investors would no longer go through frustrations and delays in accessing land for their ventures. The directory contains information on the availability of lands in eight out of the 10 regions in the country. The regions that were not covered were the Upper East and West regions. The Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, Professor Dominic Fobih, who launched the directory in Accra expressed the hope that the document would be of immense benefit to the investment community, both local and foreign and appealed to all prospective land acquirers to contact the Ministry before undertaking any contract. He said the Land Administration Project (LAP), the institution charged with the compilation of the directory covered approximately 119,435 hectares of land that was suitable for agriculture, real estate, tourism, horticulture, and forest plantation, industrial and commercial development in the eight regions. Prof. Fobih said a number of landowners did not participate in the first phase of the exercise, because they feared that government was compiling the directory with the intention of confiscating the lands for its own use. He however emphasised that government had no such intention, because lands that were given out willingly by people in the past were now being compensated for, adding that "The issue of compensation has till date not been completed by government and we would in no way seize any property." Prof Fobih said the exercise was aimed at making land available for investment and development and to ensure that investors liaised with the rightful owners to avoid litigations, as had been the case in the past. Giving the breakdown of the lands so far registered, he said 8,715 hectres were registered in the Volta region, with 41,563, in the Brong Ahafo, 24,599 in Northern, and 6,631 in the Greater Accra regions. The rest were 28,554 hectres in the Eastern region, 3,445 in Central, 801 in Ashanti and 4,125 in the Western regions. Prof Fobih said government being fully aware that land ownership in Ghana was on communal basis such as stool, clan, and family and in some cases individuals, meetings were held with the regional land sector agencies, Regional Ministers, Regional Coordinating Councils, District Chief Executives, Chiefs and Land Owners before documenting the lands covered in the directory. The whole exercise was aimed at taking into account generational interest as well as to ensure that land was preserved for the future generation. A Chief Advisor to the President, Mrs Mary Chinery- Hesse, said ensuring the security of tenure land was in line with Ghana's development target of achieving a middle-income status by 2015. She said: "It is important that investors are sure that they can hold title to land for a certain period without hindrances, hence the need for a proper documentation of all available land." Mrs Chinery-Hesse said knowing that land was the soul of most communities, it was important that those who were collating the information got things right to make the ordinary people feel protected. Government, she said would keep monitoring and evaluating the progress of the project, which was expected to be reviewed each year. Daasebre Osei Bonsu II, Mamponghene, said the chiefs indeed did welcome the new initiative of documenting lands in line with its ownership. This, he noted, would help investors to easily identify areas they intended to invest and the people to contact for such investment drives. He however urged the Ministry to continue to work with the chiefs since they were the custodians of about 80 per cent of the land. Dr Odame Larbi, Director of LAP, gave the assurance that all the issues captured in the first directory would be reviewed periodically hence the need for all to be involved. Source: GNA