Compulsory Acquisition and Urban Land Delivery in Customary Areas in Ghana

Abstract

Most land in Ghana is held by communities under customary tenure. About 20% of land in Ghana was acquired through a legal process of compulsory acquisition by the government. This process extinguishes all proprietary and jurisdictional rights, titles, or other interests vested in the stool  (traditional authority) or any other person. Among other things, compulsory acquisition aims to provide land for public purposes, to correct economic and social inefficiencies in the use of land and also to deliver on broader goals of social justice and equity in the land sector through the redistribution of land. Most compulsory acquisition laws make provision for prompt payment of adequate compensation for those who are dispossessed, but this has not always been the case resulting in disputes. This paper adopts a case study approach in Tema (Accra) and Aprade (Kumasi), Ghana, to investigate compulsory acquisition and to assess the consequences of this process on urban land delivery. The study seeks to understand why the affected communities have re-occupied land that was acquired from them through compulsory acquisition many years ago. The paper concludes that the general policy on compulsory acquisition is in need of review while the payment of compensation requires further detailed investigation.

Keywords:Customary land, customary tenure systems, traditional authorities, peri-urban land, land tenure, good governance, land administration, compulsory acquisition