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Notes on "Whose Land is it Anyway? Navigating Ghana's Complex Land System"


 * Ghana codifies laws about land ownership in the 1992 draft of the constitution.
 * The constitution specifies the outlawing of legal courts for chiefs, but permits other customary groups to having "alternative dispute and resolution ("ADR") programs
 * Any land disputes brought to a court are decided under statutory laws, even if the issue concerns customary property rules.
 * Public Land and minerals are "vested in the President on behalf of, and in trust for, the people of Ghana." (from Ghana constitution)
 * Public lands are considered any land the government compulsively attained after the ratification of the 1992 constitution.
 * Ghana's compulsory acquisition of public land and minerals for government use has led to landowners and leaseholders becoming careless and uninterested in taking care of natural resources they may own because they know the government will come and take it.
 * Minerals and Mining Act of 2006: codifies the procedure for securing minerals
 * Lands Commission is department in the government created to:
 * direct the use of public lands
 * propose growth strategies and policies to the President and relevant authorities concerning the public lands and minerals
 * oversee and implement the land title registration procedures
 * Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources is a department that ensures:
 * the sustainable management and utilization of the nation’s lands, forests and wildlife resources as well as the efficient management of the mineral resources for socio-economic growth and development.”
 * Constitution establishes a Ghanaian-only land ownership system by prohibiting non Ghanaians from fully owning any piece of Ghanaian land
 * permits only a fifty-year leasehold for non Ghanaians
 * Ghana exercises statutory and customary land ownership
 * statutory land ownership is recognized through formal land registration
 * customary land ownership is upheld by stools and skins who own the land and administer it to others
 * "stools" and "skins" are considered chiefs
 * customary ownership trumps statutory ownership as long as the statutory ownership laws are adhered to within the customary framework.
 * Within this dynamic stools and skins must pay 10% of their land revenue to the government


 * National Land Policy in 1999
 * First Land Administration Project (LAP-1) came from Policy in 2003
 * "The LAP-1, a twenty-five-year project divided into five-year phases, "was designed to address...the high level of land disputes in the country and cumbersome land administration procedures involving various statutory agencies as well as customary institutions."
 * LAP-2: 'consolidate and strengthen urban and rural land administration and management systems for the efficient and transparent land service delivery.
 * Land Bill of 2016 combines Ghana's land laws
 * identifies the Lands Commission as the agency responsible for implementing the Land Bill
 * bill combines all of Ghana's land laws
 * the structure
 * "define interest of land: allodial title, customary law freehold, common law freehold, usufructuary interest, leasehold interest, and customary tenancies.
 * Notably codifies:
 * the relationship between customary and statutory procedures in the land-registration process
 * the implementation of electric land conveyances
 * specifies penalties for government officials who "falsifies land records, fraudulently issues or alters documents, fraudulently removes documents from the land register, or mutilates any land register or Lands Commission document is subject to a fine or term of imprisonment." (from document)
 * discusses women's ability to own land
 * Customary Law is a set of cultural standards collectively adhered to by Ghanaian tribes, with each group possessing their own distinct beliefs and practices
 * customary law is incredibly important in the land ownership system in Ghana because it dictates who owns land. And because all land in Ghana is owned by someone, the customary law system has a huge part to play in the administration of land ownership and the facilitation of selling, developing, or inheriting of land.
 * Land is either ruled by a Stool, which operates under a patrilineal land inheritances system, or a Skin, which operates under a matrilineal inheritance system.
 * This means that under a Stool, land is inherited through the male's descendant's within a marriage. Whereas under a Skin, fathers can only pass land to their sister's sons or males of their maternal kin and daughters can inherit property rights from their mothers
 * It's difficult to decipher the real owner of a piece of land due to lack of public information on ownership
 * Within customary law the process of acquisition can be complicated specifically because different family members can claim interest in a piece of land without each other knowing. The land is left with multiple owners without a clear difference.
 * The owner is supposed to register the land with the Lands Commission and acquire a land-title certification. If an issue arises concerning the rightful owner of the property the land registration could be postponed indefinitely.
 * Registration
 * 32% of public land and 68% of Stool land was registered.
 * Stools do not possess hard copies of the lease receipt so they will be unable to acquire interest on the lease once it ends
 * the process for registration is long
 * registration cant take from six months to multiple years because of "competing claims"

Notes on "The Politics of Property Rights Institutions in Africa (Varying Responses by Ghanaian and Botswana State leaders)


 * The rise of the cocoa and palm oil market in Ghana during the colonial and post colonial era established the commercialization of land and drove up the land prices in the mid-1800s
 * led to the expansion of cities like Accra and Kumasi
 * State leaders pick and choose where they want to enforce land policies, directing more federal power on specific enclaves like Accra and Kumasi. This leaves chiefs mostly responsible for the local implementation of land laws.
 * leaders step back from most of their regulatory responsibility in most of the country, permitting chiefs to have more power in exchange for cooperation with the government
 * allows chiefs to administer land without strictly adhering to property rights
 * Compulsory Land Title Registration Law in 1986 supposed to help secure property rights, still followed the enclave approach (only really paying attention to Accra and Kumasi)

Notes on "The Transformation of Property Rights in the Gold Coast: An Empirical Analysis Applying Rational Choice Theory" by Kathryn Firmin-Sellers)


 * During the colonial era, British ruled the Gold Coast through indirect rule which was a system which allowed the British to delegate rule through traditional leaders who counseled colonial rulers on the production and implementation of policy within in the colony.
 * the chiefs could uphold traditional customary law, but did not have resources or power to uphold decisions in the if there was opposition
 * system made chiefs reliant on British to help enforce chiefs' decisions
 * but because British didn't allow chiefs to have real influence on policy making, chiefs did not always provide truthful advice on policy, attempting to sway policy in their favor.
 * Discovery of gold and minerals made the Gold Coast a hub for investors looking to purchase land
 * chiefs sold land without regard or adherence to legal property laws, often selling the same piece land to multiple buyers
 * British implemented the 1897 Land Bill with identified ‘waste lands, forest lands, and mineral lands in the Queen' which would disallow Africans ownership over land unless they could provide concrete proof
 * Indigenous elites and traditional rulers argued against this bill arguing that “the Lands Bill could not be applied because there were no waste lands in the Gold Coast; all land was already allocated according to the principles of customary law. Occupied lands were owned by an extended family or by a chief; unoccupied lands were managed by the stool on behalf of the citizens of that state.” 31
 * With this pushback the British withdrew the Lands Bill


 * Private property rights were created not granted uniformly but, but made malleable and application through "‘reinventing’ the traditional state.” 32
 * Such reinvention took advantage of indirect rule, which gave chiefs the right to define and apply property rights
 * rulers would change what they understood as traditional institutions of their state by manipulating the functions and capabilities of the state council, rulers, and laws on inheritance.
 * they did this for each property litigation in order to financially gain from each land transaction
 * With independence, Kwame Nkrumah completely changed private land ownership
 * did this by combining the state's power over property rights, assuming all powers of local institutions
 * his government rejected traditional rulers influence ver the administration of local affairs
 * The Local Court Act (1959) outlawed native powers and appointed government magistrates responsibility of settling issues concerning customary law