The Lands Commission is to be fully digitised as part of a comprehensive process to reform its operations in the areas of land and property valuation, property rate collection and compensation payment.

The Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Kwaku Asoma-Cheremeh, said doing this was vital to the “Ghana beyond aid agenda”.

He added that digitisation of the operations of the Commission would help to achieve client satisfaction.

The Minister was speaking at the opening of a four-day national valuation conference of the Lands Valuation Division in Koforidua.

“Leveraging innovative digital technology for improved valuation services and revenue mobilization” is the theme chosen for the meeting.

The meeting is discussing how to increase revenue mobilisation – achieve set targets for national development.

The Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Nana Akwasi Adjei-Boateng said the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) were sitting on a goldmine by way of property rate, but this was not being fully exploited.

Property rate forms the bulk of money and bedrock of the Internally Generated Funds (IGF) for the MMDAs, however, due to lack of technology the assemblies are not making enough from that.

The inability to collect property rates, he noted, was affecting their efforts at mobilizing IGF for development.

The Deputy Minister spoke of plans to engage German development agency, GIZ, to assist collect reliable data on landed property across the country to aid the assemblies to rake in the expected revenue.    

Alhaji Sulemana Mahama, Executive Secretary of the Lands Commission, said poor attitude to work and limited budget, were their main headache.

The government’s digitization agenda, he noted, was going significantly help to enhance their operations.