The Ministry of Lands, Forestry and Mines, in collaboration with its agencies is to work out modalities for the payment of appropriate annual ground rent to owners of lands leased for mining purposes. Ground rent refers to money paid annually to owners of the land leased for mining purposes if the owners are at that point in time not using the land for any activity such as farming or there is no building on the land. If there is a building on the land or it is being used for some economic activity, compensation is paid instead of ground rent. The sector Minister, Esther Obeng Dapaah said this at a day’s forum organised in Accra by the Ghana Chamber of Mines on the impact of speculative activities on development and investment. She said it was the ridiculously low annual ground rents being paid to people who do not have any project on their lands that has occasioned the increasing incidence of speculative activities of land owners in mining communities in the country. Speculative activities refer to hasty and often spurious development on mine concession areas by community members with the intent to receive compensation when mining development catches up with them. She said as a result of speculative developers enjoy more benefits in terms of compensation to the disadvantage of their counterparts who do not have any project on the land, most of such projects are hurriedly carried out, with no genuine requisite permit. Mrs Dapaah cautioned that it was important to put together adequate plans to curb the incidence of speculative activities on the Bui Dam project. "This is a national issue that must be given the needed attention," she added. She said the issue of speculative activities was so worrying as it adversely affect the viability of otherwise profitable mining projects after the unplanned payment of compensation to illegal speculators. The Director of Real Estate Department of the Volta River Authority (V.R.A.), Patrick Kwakye said VRA’s experiences with speculators have been instances where farms, temporary building structures and others have been constructed only after the intended project had started. "The V.R.A.’s Ahafo and Wexford projects are two main developments where the phenomenon of speculative activities were very pronounced," he complained. Source: The Ghanaian Times