Lands Ministry Refutes Reports It Uses Land Guards To Retrieve State Properties

The Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources has discredited reports that it contracts the services of land guards in retrieving and protecting state lands across the country.

A statement dated July 17 referenced publications by Ghana Web and Daily Post citing the Chief Director of the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Professor Patrick Agbesinyale, as the source of the information.

But a news content on Citinews site reporting the same story attributes the statement to the Minority in Parliament.

Mr Agbesinyale is said to have revealed this to the Minority members on the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament when he met them on Monday.

“One would have thought that with the passage of this law to outlaw land guards, our land tenure system would have been sanitized, and we would have all been hopeful that acquiring land will no longer be a matter of life and death and so it came to us as a surprise that the Ministry has resorted to contracting a land guard to protect government lands,” the Deputy Ranking Member on the Lands and Forestry Committee of Parliament, Alhassan Suhuyini is quoted as saying.

Countering the news reports, the Ministry affirmed it does not contract the services of land guards.

It said it rather engages a registered company for the protection and retrieval of state lands.

“The Ministry through its agency, Lands Commission legally engaged the services of Aynok Holding Limited, a registered Limited Liability Company to assist in reclaiming encroached government lands.”

It noted that this means had been in place for 11 years.