Chieftancy Institutions and Land Tenure Security

Chieftaincy Institutions and Land Tenure Security: Challenges, Responses and the Potential for Reform

Land Policy Reform in Ghana Project ISSER

Final Report (August 2007)

Nana Akua ANYIDOHO Samuel Tettey AMANQUAH Ezekiel Attuquaye CLOTTEY (Team Contact)

Email: [email protected] Phone: 024-447-4891

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................... 4 RESEARCH ISSUE OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS

5 7

BACKGROUND ...................................................................................................................................... 9 LAND REFORM AND (IN)SECURITY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CUSTOMARY AND STATUTORY LAND INSTITUTIONS ATTEMPTS TO REFORM CUSTOMARY LAND INSTITUTIONS

17 19 22

RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCESSES ......................................................................................... 24 CHOICE OF RESEARCH SITES 24 SOURCES OF DATA 25 In-depth interviews with members of chieftaincy institutions ........................................................ 26 Household Surveys ......................................................................................................................... 27 Focus Group Discussions............................................................................................................... 28 Key Informant Interviews ............................................................................................................... 28 Institutional Surveys ....................................................................................................................... 29 DATA ANALYSES 29 Coding themes for qualitative data ................................................................................................ 30 FINDINGS: PERCEPTIONS OF INSECURITY .............................................................................. 31 OVERVIEW OF REGION AND TRADITIONAL AREAS 31 Nungua Traditional Area ............................................................................................................... 32 Kpone Traditional Area ................................................................................................................. 33 Ada Traditional Area ..................................................................................................................... 34 PERCEPTIONS OF LAND OWNERS AND USERS ABOUT THE CUSTOMARY INSTITUTIONS 35 PERCEPTIONS OF CHIEFTAINCY INSTITUTIONS ABOUT LAND TENURE INSECURITY 42 FINDINGS: RESPONSES TO INSECURITY ................................................................................... 44 STRUCTURES 44 The Stool......................................................................................................................................... 45 Traditional/Divisional Council ...................................................................................................... 46 Land Allocation Committee ........................................................................................................................ 47

PROCESSES 50 Bureaucratization of application and allocation processes ........................................................... 53 Site Inspections............................................................................................................................... 55 Conflict resolution mechanisms ..................................................................................................... 55 ENGAGEMENT 56 THE POTENTIAL FOR REFORM .................................................................................................... 61 RECOMMENDATIONS 61 Continuity in land management: standing land committee............................................................ 61 Continuity in land management: recording keeping ...................................................................... 62 Adequate resources: training of efficient and knowledge personnel ............................................ 63 Mapping out clear roles and rules for CLSs .................................................................................. 65 CONCLUSION 66 REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................... 67 APPENDIX A: INDEPTH INTERVIEW GUIDE .................................................................................. 71 APPENDIX B: PROFILE OF KEY STATUTORY LAND AGENCIES

74

Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands ................................................................................................ 74 Lands Commission ..................................................................................................................................... 74

Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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TABLES

Table 1: Who Owns Land in GAR ............................................................................... 35 Table 2: Mode of Land Acquisition ............................................................................. 36 Table 3: Nature of Transaction with Customary Land Institutions .............................. 36 Table 4: Respondents Ratings of Transaction .............................................................. 37 Table 5: Respondents View of Customary Land Institutions in Need of Reform ........ 38 Table 6: Respondents perception of land problems in three research sites .................. 39


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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Customary institutions with proprietary interest in land are compelled to adapt to variable economic and political environments or face the threat of redundancy. Among the confluences of dynamic forces that exert pressure on customary land systems are the increasing commercialization of land; the burgeoning demand that exceeds supply in many parts of Ghana; and the effect of political/government interventions in areas previously the domain of traditional authorities. A useful lesson learnt from research in Ghana and other parts of the continent is that customary institutions are adaptable to change. An equally important lesson is that the process of adaptation cannot happen in isolation from historical, political and legal contexts; that change cannot be imposed, but must built upon from the institutional structures and processes that have evolved over time. Customary land institutions remain the majority landholders in Ghana, with holdings of nearly 80% of all land, and with discretionary power over everyday decisions of land management (Kasanga and Kotey, 2001). Clearly, customary institutions are integral to the processes by which land is exchanged and utilized for various purposes. However, we do not understand enough about how such institutions function within their local contexts to take clear direction about what their potential roles could or should be in the process of land reform (Agbosu et al., 2006). The study focuses on the Greater Accra Region where the pressures on the customary land institutions, and on their interaction with statutory bodies and laws, have been most dramatic and where, consequently, the limits and potential of traditional institutions have arguably been most tested. This study looks at the current and potential role of customary institutions – represented in this study by the chieftaincy - in relation to the question of tenure security, which has been flagged as one of the urgent issues on land with implications for productivity, investment, livelihood security, and general socio-economic development.


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Research Issue Tenure insecurity is the actual or perceived probability that a person will lose ownership or access to land. It has been argued that the litmus test of security of tenure is the ability to defend it should it come under challenge (Agbosu et al., 2006). Tenure security is identified as a critical factor in development. In fact, it has been argued that lack of security may be the major obstacle to the advancement of developing countries. De Soto (2003), for example, makes the oft-cited argument that poor countries are unable to harness the vast lands at their disposal as forms of capital because of their inability to properly secure land. The general understanding in the literature is that if tenure security were to be achieved, it would act as a catalyst for socioeconomic development by providing an inducement for investment, securing people’s livelihoods, and reducing the resources and time that goes into land disputes . The notion that customary institutions had outlived their usefulness, or that they could actually be hindrances to development, was a strong theme in discussions on land from the 1960s. Customary land institutions were said to exacerbate the problem of land insecurity with their traditional approaches to land use and management. Increasingly, however, customary institutions are being reinstated as relevant to the process of finding synergetic systems of land administration that will be compatible with societal development. In the new discourse on land, customary institutions are lauded as organic systems with the ability to deliver on land security (e.g. Kasanga & Kotey, 2001; Migot-Adholla et al., 1994). In Ghana, for instance, one of the impulses of the ongoing Land Administration Program (LAP) is towards decentralization of land management, which opens up space for the involvement of customary institutions in collaboration with other institutions. A few notes of caution have been sounded in the general optimism about the potential of customary institutions to positively effect land reform. These doubts concern the ability of customary institutions to comprehensively deal with land tenure insecurity across different categories of land use, and across various social categories of people. First, it has been suggested that, while they may be able to handle the use of land for agricultural purposes, traditional systems are ill-equipped to respond to the complexities of the diverse systems of ownership, control and use of land in an urban Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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setting (Payne, 1997). This study is significant because it examines whether and to what extent customary institutions (specifically, the chieftaincies) recognise the challenges presented to their control of land by the relentless pressure on land and, further, the extent to which they are able to transform their structures and processes to meet those challenges. Secondly, the question of land is highly political and this means that the process of land reform – and the role of chieftaincy institutions in that process – must be understood not simply as an administrative exercise, but a political process that involves a variety of vested interests. It has been rightly argue that the relations of power inherent in any social institution demands an interrogation of the assumption that customary institutions will deliver equitable access to land to the socially disadvantaged (e.g. Amanor, 2006; Quan & Antwi, 2006; Whitehead & Tsikata, 2003). In other words, there is the danger that customary institutions might heighten tenure insecurity, especially for the socially disadvantaged. There is therefore a need for the kind of critical evaluation that this study will undertake into the functioning of the customary institutions. Gaining insight into how the chieftaincy institutions are able to respond to the problem of tenure insecurity will provide direction about the role that they could play in helping reform land policy and practice in order to enhance the well-being of the country’s people and to promote development.

Research Question and Objectives Traditional authorities remain the largest holders of land in Ghana, with direct and everyday influence on issues of land and livelihoods. No attempt to reform land policies can be viable if it does not take account of the integral link between customary institutions and land. We are interested in the actual and potential role of chieftaincy institutions, as an important component of traditional land institutions, to effect security of tenure. In view of the foregoing, the study poses the following question: To what extent and in what ways do chieftaincy institutions recognise and respond to issues of tenure insecurity? Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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The objectives of the research, flowing out of our research question, are as follows: 1. To analyse the challenges of land security as perceived by the chieftaincies. 2. To document and analyse the responses that the chieftaincy institutions have made to the problem of land security. 3. To suggest, from our findings, possible reform measures that may make the best of the chieftaincy system in order to improve tenure security for various categories of people. The insight this study will provide into chieftaincy institutions can be the basis for proposing policies that will strengthen these institutions to better provide tenure security.

Outline of Chapters Chapter Two of this report provides a theoretical and policy backdrop for the study, through a discussion of approaches to tenure security in Ghana over time, especially as these abut or overlap with the authority of the chieftaincy institutions. Chapter Three discusses research design and processes. It includes a description of the different types of data used and the nature of the analyses conducted on the data. The problem inherent in trying to situate chieftaincy institutions in the process of land reform is the immense diversity of their structures and dynamics. This does not make the task impossible, but it does suggest that an effective approach would be to understand these institutions comprehensively so that we can propose appropriate policies that respond to the commonalities and differences across customary institutions. This study aims to contribute to this necessary process of systematic documentation and analysis by carrying out an in-depth investigation of three institutions in the Greater Accra Region (GAR). Primary data for the study was collected in three traditional areas situated within three districts in GAR: the Nungua, Kpone and Ada Traditional Areas. The data from these research sites consisted of indepth interviews with chiefs and other key members of the chieftaincy institution to gain nuances into the functioning of traditional land institutions. The study also made Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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use of secondary data from the ISSER Land Policy Reform in Ghana (LPRG) research study. This comprised analytical reports compiled on household surveys, focused group discussions with community members, and institutional interviews with the key customary and statutory agencies involved in land administration. The study used a complementary combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, as appropriate for the various types of data. Both approaches contributed to analysis of the current challenges of tenure insecurity and the response of the chieftaincy institutions. Chapter Four presents the major findings of the study. It synthesises the analyses of qualitative and quantitative data coming out of the in-depth interviews, household surveys, community focus groups, key informant interviews, and institutional interviews. In this chapter, we highlight commonalities and differences across the three traditional areas in terms of sources of and solutions to tenure insecurity. We find that the responses that the chieftaincy institutions make to insecurity can be placed into three analytical categories: structures, processes and engagement. The chapter describes and analyses these varying responses. The

final

chapter

presents,

based

on

the

research

findings,

our

recommendations on the possibilities for reform of the chieftaincy institutions in order that they can better provide tenure security for themselves and for their tenants.


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CHAPTER TWO

BACKGROUND

This chapter presents a backdrop to the discussion on land tenure security and customary institutions. It is based on two main premises: one is the centrality of the institution of chieftaincy in the traditional land administration setup, and the second is the analytical importance of the contexts in which the institution must necessarily operate. Customary land institutions comprise a range of actors and structures including families, clans, stools and skins, the tendana, and so on. Despite the variations of form and structure of land ownership and management, chiefs commonly have oversight or ultimate custody of land as political heads, even where they are not the direct owners of the land. According to the report on a household survey conducted nation-wide under the Land Policy Reform in Ghana (LPRG) research project, the majority of respondents (32.9 %) claimed the land in their areas of residence was owned by the chief in trust for the community, and about 86% of them wanted the chiefs to be owners/trustees of land, to regulate land matters, to fix land prices or to have authority to register land transactions (ISSER, 2005). Moreover, chiefs are perhaps the most important and visible of traditional authority figures in the country, whose influence spill over from the ‘traditional’ or the cultural to other domains of national life. The chieftaincy institution is “the medium for the expression of social, political, religion and…economic authority” (Odotei & Awenoba, 2006, p. 15), for which reason chiefs have been identified as ‘drivers of change’ in the process of development. Finally, in policy circles and even in ordinary discourse, customary land rights have often been associated with the institution of chieftaincy (Amanor, 2006; Ubink, 2006). Accordingly, this study asserts that an investigation of the institution of chieftaincy is pivotal to the question of land reform. The second major theme coming out of this chapter is that the role of the chieftaincy institution and its potential transformation cannot be discussed in a vacuum. As with any social institution, chieftaincy institutions impact on and are Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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impacted by various contexts. The socio-cultural, political and economic environments have influence on the scope of authority, structure and functioning of customary institutions over time. The evolution of land markets and the increasing commercialization of land have also been important influences on the chieftaincy institutions. Another set of influences come from the legal and policy framework within which chiefs must operate. The main concern of the present study of the Greater Accra Region is that the combination of a frenetic land market within a shaky structural framework suggests the possibility of disenfranchisement for some groups in society, and general disorder in the management of land. This study seeks to understand how the customary institutions are placed to respond to these challenges.

Defining land security Land tenure security refers to the ability of land owners and users to protect their rights to land. This is a simple definition that belies the complexity of the concept of rights. The rights to land could include one of more of the following sub-rights: “entry, extraction, management, exclusion, and sale” (ISSER, 2006a, p. 187). The particular combination of these rights that an individual or group is entitled to may differ depending on the mode of access to land; that is, whether land is acquired through inheritance, free access, gifting, renting, shareholding, borrowing, outright purchase, leasing or pledging. The question of security may also take different forms for different categories of people and land use. In this study, we recognize the complexity of land security and the challenges it poses to the chieftaincy institutions. Rather than simply discounting chieftaincy institutions as incapable of addressing these complexities or, at the other extreme, subscribing to an over-optimistic view of their ability to fashion appropriate responses, it is important to examine, as this study aims to do, the ways in which the chieftaincies attempt to deal with these challenges. For the purposes of the study, we view land security on three different dimensions: the extent to which right are well-defined and understood by all parties involved; the extent to which those rights can be exercised; and the extent to which


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those rights are protected when they come into dispute. In effect, we look at the role of the chieftaincy through the continuum of land acquisition, use and disposal of land.

Chieftaincies and tenure security Land tenure insecurity, or the attempt to enhance security, is an inherent problem in the management of land, but the nature of issues of security changes within and across time. The relationship of chieftaincy institutions to security also varies, whether in mitigating or aggravating the situation of insecurity. The arrangements by which land is accessed are an important part of societal arrangements, especially in agrarian economies. Ownership of land in Ghana and in most parts of the continent has historically been communal, with designated leader, usually the head of a lineage or family, or the political head of a community, given powers of administration or management on behalf of the group (Gyasi, 1994). Land tenure systems were intimately linked with the political set up (Alhassan, 2006), and in many cases control over land was the legitimation of power. From the advent of colonialism in Ghana through to the post-independence government, the chieftaincy institutions have undergone changes due to the internal changes that are normal to any societal institution but also, and perhaps more significantly, due to the actions of successive governments. In the first instance, the institution of colonial rule greatly revised the role of chiefs in land management and raised new issues of tenure security. The British colonial government passed the 1894 Lands Bill which placed what was identified as unoccupied and fallow land under its control. The Bill effectively restricted the control of traditional authorities on land, disenfranchising many farmers and settlers, and stunting the growth of a land market (Amanor, 2006). The bill was withdrawn in the face of vociferous opposition from the chiefs and intelligentsia, among others. However, the Native Administration Ordinance (NAO), passed in 1928, was to prove to have an even more comprehensive and enduring effect on the relationship between traditional authority and land. Essentially, the NAO attempted to administer the colony through chiefs who would manage land according to customary practice. However, in practice, customary practice was subject to interpretation and often invention (Amanor, 2006; see also Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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Rathbone, 1993). Chiefs fought among themselves over land and succession to stools, and were challenged by the youth and other ‘commoners’ on the legitimacy of their control of land, and about their perceived mismanagement of land (Amanor, 2006; see also Asiamah, 2000). . In the late 1940s, the Watson and Coussey commissions were set up to investigate general problems that arose within the colony, and to implement recommendations. The main grievance by Gold Coast residents was the undue power chiefs derived from the NAO. The Watson Committee recommended the role of chiefs in the management of the colony and land matters be limited, but the Coussey Commission, which drafted a new constitution for the colony, ultimately gave chiefs a visible place in the new democratic political framework, and did not attempt to take away their presumed authority over land. Independence brought its own challenges. The government of Kwame Nkrumah has become somewhat infamous for its hostile orientation to chiefs and, according to one scholar, has done more to shape the political framework of contemporary Ghana than even the colonial struggle (Rathbone, 2000). Successive governments tended to use legislative instruments to limit the authority of chiefs (Arhin, 2006), and were sometimes indiscriminate in the compulsory acquisitions of land, presumably for the national interest. The aftershocks of these actions can be seen in the number of battles fought in the courts and in the public domain by various communities in the Greater Accra Region and elsewhere in the country to regain control of such lands. (These fights are sometimes led by chiefs, and sometimes the chiefs have been seen as being complicit in the loss of land). Divergent views have been expressed about the effect of government actions on the question of chiefly authority over land. One school of thought says that past governments have effectively muzzled chiefs by limiting their role in political life and putting supervision on their collection and disbursal of revenues from land (e.g. Rathbone, 2000). However, another viewpoint is that the independence governments (with the possible exception of Nkrumah’s government) have allowed the chiefs to acquire more power in land matters, first by their disinclination to peer too closely into the workings of chieftaincies, and second by eroding the traditional limitations that Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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would have contained the exercise of chiefly power (e.g. Toulmin & Quan, 2000; Ubink, 2006). Amanor (2006) takes the argument further by pointing out that it has served the interest of governments to use the rhetoric of chiefs’ ‘natural’ or allodial rights, which implied their right to transact in land. These rights were evoked and supported, for instance, in government acquisitions of land where the chiefs could be used to disposes ordinary citizens of land, or where the government wanted to encourage leasing or selling of land to non-indigenous investors. The chieftaincy institution in the Greater Accra region are in a somewhat unique situation from those around the country, and the argument has been made that their lot, since the colonial period, has been a general decline in authority and legitimacy. Quarcoopome (2006) notes that the Native Administration Ordinance (NAO) which is credited with giving chiefs power in the colonial setup was created without input from the Ga chiefs, and ended up projecting an Akan version of the chieftaincy institution on Gas. The result was the perversion of the Ga traditional authority systems with the placement of all Ga chiefs under the one chief, the Ga Mantse. Again, the making of Accra as the capital meant that the government assumed a much more prominent role in the administration of the city and in the lives of its inhabitants, both Gas and migrants, than it might otherwise have taken, Regardless of government action or inaction, the chieftaincy institutions have shown surprisingly resilience, with the establishment of the national and regional houses of chiefs as on example of the new spaces that chiefs are carving out for themselves in Ghanaian political and social life (Rathbone, 2000; Arhin, 2006). This resilience has been one reason for the attempts by the Land Administration Project (LAP) to reposition chiefs in the land reform process. However, one might question the confidence that is being reposed in the chieftaincy systems, in view of the challenges stacked up against them. We will look at the challenges that are particularly applicable to the situations of rural, peri-urban and urban Greater Accra. First are challenges to the authority of chiefs, and to their role in administering land. Given the history of the imposition and, often times, the creation of chieftaincies in the colonial period, this is hardly surprising. However, the problem does not always lie in the interference of colonialists. In the Greater Accra Region, as in other parts of Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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the country, settlements have frequently been hacked out of virgin forests, and the resulting villages and towns placed under a self-styled or elected ‘chief’. This can create tensions about the nature of the relationships between these village/town chiefs and other traditional authorities in the wider area. Again, with the existence of stool lands and family lands, and the conflict over the degree of control each level of traditional authority can rightly exert over land, customary land tenure can be quite uncomplicated. Another challenge for chiefs is the plural systems in which land is administered in Ghana. Agbosu (1990) suggests that land security first became a salient concern for emergent capitalists in the commercial and urban centres, whose entrepreneurial ambitions were impeded by communal ownership and the insecurity of individual land holding. This was the impetus behind the push for land titling and registration in Ghana. At the same time the customary system remained pre-eminent in rural areas with their large population of subsistence farmers. This analysis would suggest a dichotomy between capitalism and low-capital agricultural, between urban and rural, the traditional and the modern. However, there is no such clear distinction, not least because customary land tenure systems are not clearly defined or uncontested (Amanor, 2006), and because of the melding of what ‘customary’ with common law (Agbosu et al., 2006), so that notions of ‘allodial’ titles and chiefs customary control over land have been invented and reinforced by the legal or formal structures (Quan, & Antwi, 2006). As the preceding historical brief has suggested, customary land relations have often been defined by people wielding power, within and outside the state, to suit their own interests. The question of tenure security therefore becomes especially important in the potential conflict between a multiplicity of customary land systems and vaguely defined and loosely implemented statutory laws. Further, the chieftaincies and their related systems of land administration are challenged by changes in society. The past two decades have witnessed changing trends in land which have brought the question of tenure security to the fore of public and policy discussions. Increased population growth rates have resulted in huge demand (and consequently high prices) for land and landed properties. These trends, coupled with the government’s goal of pursuing a market-oriented economic agenda, Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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have led to increased commercialization of the land market. Much of the operation of the land market is informal and, by one estimate, as much as 95% of land transactions are conducted informally; that is, solely in the realm of the customary (Aryeetey et al., 2007). While the equation of customary with ‘informal’ might be problematised in view of the increasing formalization of transactions within the customary set up, this observation does show that the chieftaincies and other customary institutions continue to have great influence over the land markets. At the same time, the rights of other users of land may not be protected, since the regulatory bodies lack the ability to properly regulate the markets (Antwi, 2002, cited in Aryeetey et al., 2007). One consequence of this process of commercialization, therefore, is the gradual emergence of landless communities and social groups who cannot acquire or hold on to land. As one

instance,

conflicts

over use

of land

for agriculture, residential or

commercial/industrial purposes is particularly acute in urban and peri-urban areas, and users of farm lands tend to loose out in this equation (Aryeetey et al., 2007). The growing demand for land and its associated financial benefits have made the position of chiefs even more attractive, and this partly explains the many competing claims being made to stools in the Greater Accra Region. It is significant that agitations against the chief in Kpone coincided with the growing demand for land in this peri-urban area, aggravated by allegations of lack of transparency in allocating land and in accounting for revenue from stool lands. In Ada traditional area, one of the sub-chiefs reported that wealthy and educated men who do not belong to the royal families have tried to influence kingmakers to enstool them. Again, chiefs have been at the centre of much furore over land, with community members accusing them of wanton disbursement of land, or of corrupt use of funds obtained from land. The issue of traditional authorities accepting bribes was mentioned in interviews in all three traditional areas, with the chiefs and elders articulating concerns that the integrity and influence of traditional authorities was on the decline. In the Kpone traditional area, an elderly member of the community reported corruption involving the registrar of the traditional council who is reselling land at high prices to people. Our interviews in the Nungua traditional area also turned


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up reported incidences of complicity between a destooled chief and officials of Lands Commission to sell Nungua lands. In sum, there are doubts about the willingness and the capacity of chiefs to act in the interest of providing security not only for themselves but for tenants, buyers and users of land. There are two primary avenues in which chieftaincy institutions can be implicated in the insecurity of tenure of different constituents of people. First, if they themselves experience insecurity in their primary rights or interests, it can translate into insecurity for secondary right holders. In other words, to the extent that there is a challenge to the authority of chiefs over land, any group or individuals can have their derived rights similarly challenged. Second are sources of insecurity that have to do with the actions or inactions of chiefs, such as when they are negligent or behave in ways that puts others’ security of tenure at risk; for example, by appropriating land illegitimately.

In either case, the consequence is more dire for relatively more

vulnerable groups such as women, migrants and the youth. The literature on land shows that, particularly in rural agrarian communities, the commoditisation of labour and the availability of migrant labour, combined with increasing alienation of land to non-indigenes, means that youth can no longer be assured of either a livelihood or an inheritance land (Amanor, 2001, 2006). This partly explains the many conflicts between youth and chiefs in various parts of Ghana over land. In regards to women, the literature suggests that while in many customary settings women do have rights to land, their access to and control over land in Ghana tends to be more limited and open to question than men’s (Kotey & Tsikata, 1998). This is a concern because of the high presence of women in agriculture, and because of the importance of agriculture for their livelihood needs (Agbosu et al., 2006). It can be argued that, similar to women and the youth, migrants’ access to land tends to be derived from their relationship with adult males in landholding lineages, and is therefore susceptible to the vagaries of those social relationships. Insecurity of tenure for these groups is heightened in the context of urbanisation, where land becomes commercialised, and therefore more expensive and scarce. In this case, there is little incentive for landowners and


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landholders to protect their secondary rights in the phase of increasing monetary value for those same lands (Agbosu et al., 2006).

Land reform and (in)security According to Agbosu et al. (2006), successive governments from the colonial era to the present have attempted to formalize land holdings. The instrument of choice has been formal registration. This has partly been in response to the perceived inadequacies of customary administration of land, particularly in the area of ensuring security of access and ownership (Dickerman, 1989). The assumption is that individual titling will promote development by first enhancing security, which will allow people to use land as capital or as a means of access to capital, and will allow them to long-term investments in land. In Ghana, the first land registration policy was the Registration Ordinance of 1883. This was followed with other attempts to use registration to address the problem of insecurity, including the Land Registration Ordinance of 1895, the The Lands Registry Act of 1962 (Act 122), and the Lands Title Registration Law of 1986 (PNDC Law 152). As with other colonial states in Africa (Dickerman 1989), individual land registration was not widespread, and was contained mainly in urban areas and among Europeans whose interested could not be protected by customary administration. Thus, at the very onset, there existed a duality which saw the customary and statutory land systems offering alternative and, sometimes, contesting means for the protection of rights to land. Dickerman (1989) further argues that registration was a tool for nationalist governments to move towards reforms of land tenure that would allow for statecontrol of the economy, although these efforts have been fragmented over time, and have not been carried out uniformly. Alongside registration of titles were government seizure of lands, granting of large concessions, encouraging of leaseholds, all of which practices were oft-times in conflict with tenure security for some land users. The important note here is that land security may be only one motivation for land reform, and not always the most important. In her review of land registration on the continent, Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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Dickerman (1989) notes that the judgements about what kinds of holding should be encouraged has differed between the national governments and donors like USAID who have been influential in pushing for land titling on the continent. According to Dickerman, while tenure security in individual freeholds was important to such agencies, national governments may have had more of a priority area in productive use of land, whatever its specific holding, than in the provision of security for users. This is not to say that governments do not recognize that tenure security is important. The question that the foregoing discussions brings up strongly is for what purpose is security desired and, perhaps more importantly, whose security is protected? The above discussion problematises the assumed link between land registration and land security. One issue that can be called into question is the association of registration in the public mind to individual freehold. As Dickerman (1989) points out, in African countries, including Ghana, land registration has become a hybrid system that incorporates European emphasis on individual freeholding, to African norms of communal landholding. The impact on land security of this hybrid system is difficult to assess. On the one hand, allowing for registration of multiple or corporate ownership means, in the case of family land, for instance, that everyone’s right is secured equally and legally. On the other hand, multiple ownership might also mean more conflict since registration records do not always reflect degrees of control or access. This is one source of insecurity for secondary rights holders when many people from a lineage or other land-holding group claim the right to disburse of a single piece of land. Secondly, and deriving from the above point, our overview suggests that tenure security does not have to be defined in terms of the technicalities of registration. This opens up the possibilities of what tenure security should look like, and how best it can be achieved. Security can be sought both through formal registration, as well as through informal means, and the study hopes to gain insight into how these two systems might achieve effective synergy. Thirdly, it is clear that there are contestations among land users and even among policymakers about the processes and goals of land reform process within which land titling is a primary goal. In a national survey of land users and land owners Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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in Ghana, approximately 37% of respondents cited challenges with the customary land institutions that required improvement, and out of this proportion, half of the problems were put at the door of the chieftaincy (ISSER, 2005). However, there is not an equally clear articulation of what kind of reform will best ensure security of rights. Even among policymakers, there is contestation about the role of customary institutions in land reform. For instance, the current Administrator of Stool Lands in Ghana, Dr. Mathilda Fiadzigbey, commenting on the constitutional injunction of freeholding of customary lands, stated that the ‘‘this intervention by government though laudable, was belated and also should have gone a step further to convert all existing freeholds on stool lands to leasehold” (Fiadzigbey, 2006). Her rationale was that leaseholds would ensure the rights of future generations to land and its resources. In sharp contrast, Dr. Odame Larbi, the Project Director of the Land Administration Project (LAP), has suggested that “it will be necessary to ponder over the granting of leases and the lid the constitution has placed on granting of freeholds”. This evidences the contradictions within the policy setup itself. Moreover, there is a disjuncture between what government policy lays out and what is actually practiced by the customary institutions. To continue with the example of the debate over leaseholds versus freeholds (which is a seminal issue in customary land administration), the law that puts an injunction of granting of freehold does not cover family lands, which is a loophole that is being exploited; customary land is now being converted to family lands that can be given out on freehold basis (Fiadzigbey, 2006). All this demonstrates that we require better insight into the operations of the customary institutions in order to fashion out thoughtful and effective policies.

Relationship between customary and statutory land institutions A non-exhaustive list of statutory institutions that are implicated in land administration include the following: Lands Commission, Land Valuation Board, Survey Department, Deeds Registry, Land Title Registry, Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands, Department of Town and Country Planning, Water Resources Commission, Forestry Commission, Minerals Commission, government (central and


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local), and the courts. What follows is an attempt to describe the ways in which the two systems might come into contact and into contestation. Customary lands are lands that are exclusively owned and managed by stools families or clans. The allodial title can be held by a stool/skin, family/clan, community or individuals and is usually vested in a head who is enjoined by law [Article 36 (8) of the 1992 Constitution, Head of Family (Accountability) Law 1985] to hold such land in trust for his/her constituents. Documents prepared by customary landowners, after completing negotiations with lessees, are required to be submitted to either Lands Commission for registration under the deeds system or to Land Title Registry for title registration. It is important here to explain the differences between deeds and title registration and their implication for tenure security. Registration under the deeds system, as spelt out in the Land Registry Act 1962 (Act 122), involves maintaining records on instruments on land. It does not involve site visits by statutory land agencies to verify information contained in the instruments. The absence of a monitoring mechanism has had an adverse effect on tenure security because of the errors that can be contained in plans attached to land documents. Land Title registration is the state’s response to the lapses in the deeds system. The Land Title Registration Law 1986 (PNDCL 152) made the preparation of parcel plans, site visits, and publication of notices key requirements prior to the issuance of title certificate. The cost outlay and length of time involved compared to the Deeds System however have acted as a disincentive to some land owners. Currently, the majority of lands in the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions have been declared registration districts, which imply that grants made in these areas must be registered under title registration. In reality however, prospective lessees of grants made in the registration districts still resort to the deeds registration system, despite its inherent weaknesses that impact adversely on tenure security. The Survey Department is charged under the Land Title Registration Law of 1986 to ensure the proper demarcation of the boundaries of each parcel within the registration district, and to make available to the Title Registry all such maps. In fact, no title may be registered unless a title plan signed by the Director of Surveys is Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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attached to an application. (The Survey Department has played a less important role in the operation of the deeds registration system. Though it prepares the base maps on which the plotting of parcels is done, the site plans which accompany all instruments are prepared by licensed surveyors.) By virtue of Section 4(1) of the Lands Commission Act, 1994 and Article 267(3) of the 1992 Constitution, there shall be no disposition or development of any stool land unless the Regional Lands Commission has certified that the disposition is consistent with the development plan drawn up for the area. The Lands Commission thus ensures that grants made by customary land owners conform to existing layouts. The Land Valuation Board assesses the appropriate fees (or stamp duty) that must be paid by the lessee. In the event of government compulsorily acquiring a customary land, the Land Valuation Board has the added responsibility of computing the amount of compensation that the government must pay. The Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL) assesses and collects the ground rent inserted in the lease document. The OASL collects outstanding ground rent from defaulting lessees on customary lands and disburses the revenue according to the Constitutional provision to beneficiary communities. (See Appendix B for fuller description of legal status and mandate of some key statutory land agencies). This summary of some of the steps that are required in the formal processes of administering land throws up some challenges for land security, as will be captured in the analysis of interviews and other empirical data. In the concept and practice of this dual system of land administration, some tensions arise around the meaning of land and its ownership, between collective and individual or private interests, between ‘traditional’ versus ‘modern’ notions of land management, and between various categories of land users (ISSER, 2006, May). Layered over these tensions are changes in legislation over time, and the proliferation of statutory agencies with overlaps in mandate and function. For instance, both the Deeds Registry and Land Registry allow for registration of land; in addition, the Lands Commission has the responsibility of helping to create a database of all public lands. The fact of having a number of different agencies with similar responsibilities is problematic, especially when there tends to be little coordination and much duplication of functions, as the institutional Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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interviews gathered by ISSER reveal (ISSER, 2006b). In the same interviews, the agencies admit to being under-staffed and under-resourced (ISSER, 2006b). These challenges bring up questions about the efficiency of statutory land agencies in carrying out their duties, and the costs in time and money to their clients. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the relationship between the customary and statutory institutions is the perception that the latter curtail the power of the traditional authorities. The statutes that have set up the formal land agencies have had the overall effect of taking away power from customary authorities (Agbosu et al., 2006), and effectively set up an antagonistic relationship between the two. For instance, a common complaint in the literature and echoed by the respondents for this study is that the land agencies bypass traditional authorities in disbursing land and in sharing of revenue from land, sometimes leading to charges of corruption against statutory institutions. In this dynamic where there is suspicion and, consequently, little effort at collaboration, land tenure security is compromised. Therefore, a discussion of effective response of customary institutions to tenure insecurity should examine not only the internal workings of these institutions, but also their interaction with other land agencies.

Attempts to reform customary land institutions: The creation of customary land secretariats With the Land Administration Project (LAP), the government has the stated objective of strengthening customary land administration to make it more responsive to the growing demand for tenure security in the country. In furtherance of this goal, customary land secretariats (CLS) have been established on pilot basis in some selected areas across the country. It is envisaged by the framers of the LAP that the creation of a formal administrative body under the aegis of a chief/ family head will streamline the land management regimes of customary land owners by supervising efficient records management, creating accountable and transparent land management structures, and developing an effective dispute resolution procedures. It is expected that this will go to improve tenure security over customary lands. However, the operations of the pilot Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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secretariats have suffered several setbacks. The underlying problems includes the failure to undertake an adequate and participatory needs assessment that would have ironed out issues of CLS staff remunerations, maintenance of the secretariats and how synergies could be developed between these secretariats and the statutory land sector agencies. At present, issues such as payment of staff and the maintenance of equipment supplied have now become sources of contestations. Additionally, political influences at the onset of project planning and implementation shaped project goals and resulted in targets that were based more on political motivations and less on the concerns and existing structures of customary land owners (Quan & Antwi, 2006). In fact, this is the most serious indictment of the CLS; that it is doomed to failure unless there is a clear agreement on the rights and responsibilities of the chiefs and the state (represented by the local government and statutory land agencies) - an agreement that would recall and redress past and present relations and actions (Quan & Antwi, 2006). This would help to establish exactly how the CLSs will fit into the existing customary land management structure. This is again why it is necessary to investigate in depth what already exists within the customary institutions, in order to assess how reform can support and build on existing structures.


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CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCESSES

Choice of Research Sites Region There are different types of chieftaincy institutions in the country, far beyond the scope of this study to examine to any satisfactory degree in a single research study. In this study, we focus on the Greater Accra Region (GAR) as the site of this investigation into the workings of the chieftaincy institutions. There are a number of reasons for the choice of the GAR. To begin with, the study attempts to look at present and possible future adaptations of chieftaincy institutions to the emergence of land markets and other historical processes. While noting the dynamism of customary institutions, Kasanga and Kotey (2001) observe that these institutions come under extreme pressure in areas of rapid urbanization and high population growth rages. As the region with the fastest growing urban and periurban localities, the GAR is an ideal region where we can investigate the capacity of traditional land institutions to confront new and urgent realities. Secondly, the GAR holds the distinction of being the host region for the capital city and, not coincidentally, it is in the GAR that the land market has been most expansive in its growth and operation, and where government intervention in matters of land has been most extensive. Despite its peculiarities, the GAR also has some features that make study of the region pertinent to situations elsewhere in the country. For instance, the GAR has a range of rural, urban and peri-urban centres, meaning that there is enough variation for insightful analyses that can be generalized to other rural, urban and peri-urban areas in the country. One might also surmise that the pressure the GAR faces is likely to be a challenge, to varying extents, for other towns and cities in the country as urbanization spreads. For these reasons, a case study of the GAR could be instructive for


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understanding the capabilities and limitations of customary institutions elsewhere to deal with tenure insecurity.

Traditional Areas, Locales and Districts The study examines in-depth the workings of three major traditional areas in the GAR. These are the Nungua, Kpone and Ada Traditional Areas which are situated respectively within three districts, namely the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), the Tema Municipal Assembly (TMA), and the Dangme East District Assembly (DED). The three districts were part of a survey conducted in 2005 by the Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) as part of the Land Policy Reform in Ghana (LPRG) research project, of which this study forms a part. The LPRG also collected information from specific locales or numeration areas within the above three districts – Nungua in AMA, Michel Camp in TMA, and Mensah Korpe in DED, representing urban, peri-urban and rural localities respectively. These sets of data – surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews – are used to complement primary data collected specifically for this study. . Sources of Data The study utilizes data and methodological triangulation in that a number of types of data were analysed, each of which provided a different perspective into question of security of land tenure. The study collected primary data in the form of in-depth interviews with members of chieftaincy institutions in the traditional areas of Nungua, Ada and Kpone in the Greater Accra Region. A second category of data used in this study drew from analysis and reports on data collected as part of the LPRG undertaken by ISSER at the University of Ghana. These comprised of the reports on the household survey questionnaires administered to individual members of farming households, focus group discussions with members of selected communities, key informant interviews of community leaders, and institutional surveys with the statutory bodies on land. Thirdly, the study consulted government documents, reports (including those commissioned by the LPRG), and public information material such as Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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newspapers to gain more information on the socio-political and historical environment in which the issue of land has been debated. These documents provided supplementary information that was not available from the collected surveys and interviews.

In-depth interviews with members of chieftaincy institutions The main sources of data for this study are nine interviews conducted with key members of the chieftaincy institutions in the Kpone, Ada and Nungua Traditional Areas of the Greater Accra Region in September 2006. In each area, we aimed to collect information from a chief (either paramount or divisional), as well as an elder of the chief’s court with knowledge on land issues. We also interviewed, in each area, an elder in the town who was not a member of the chieftaincy structure but who could provide insight into the chieftaincy’s relationship with land (this third informant could, for instance, be the head of a land-owning family, or a member of a land management body). o In the Nungua Traditional Area, in-depth interviews were held with the paramount chief and the Dzasetse. As well, a focus group discussion was conducted with the chiefs and elders of the Nungua traditional area. o In the Kpone Traditional Area, in-depth interviews were conducted with the paramount chief, the Gbetsile chief, and an elder and former chairman of the Kpone Land Allocations Committee. o In Ada, the paramount chief and two sub-chiefs were interviewed.

A fourth set of interviews were done in Gbawe with the chief and members of his court. The Gbawe site was to serve as an exemplar of a customary land institution that has a reputation of good land administration. Gbawe is unique in having relative autonomy over its lands and so allows an analysis of the possibilities offered by administrative control over aspects of stool land management that is commonly under the jurisdiction of the statutory land agencies. The interviews were to obtain insight into the responses to tenure insecurity of the chieftaincy institutions in the three traditional areas, and in Gbawe. We aimed to Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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elicit rich descriptions of the ways in which the chieftaincy functioned as a land management body, and also of the ways in which their functioning had changed over time. The interviews were semi-structured. A guide was created to frame the interviews (see Appendix A), but as much as possible, the interviews were carried out in a conversational tone which allowed respondents to provide detailed accounts, with occasional probes and follow-ups from the interviewers. The interviews (each lasting about an hour) were conducted in the Ga language by two interviewers, and were later translated and transcribed into English by native Ga speakers.

Household Surveys As part of the larger LPRG study, a survey was conducted in July 2005 of households nation-wide. In all, 2,690 individual responses were collected from ten regions, with 300 from five enumeration areas in the Greater Accra Region alone (Nungua, Michel Camp, Mensah Korpe, Amasaman/Ofankor and Nii Boi Town). We make use of both the aggregated data for the country and for the Greater Accra Region in our work. For the purposes of more focused analysis, we also extracted the survey responses from the three districts within which we conducted our study. Accordingly, the present study made use of the 179 survey responses collected in the three traditional areas of interest in the GAR. Out of this figure, 57 were obtained from Nungua in AMA, 62 from Michel Camp in TMA, and 60 from Mensah Korpe in DED. Figure 1 disaggregates these survey responses by sex, origin and location. There were 105 males and 74 women, aged between 30 and 75. Roughly a third of the sample self-identified as indigenes, and the rest were migrants.

Figure 1: Individual Survey Responses in GAR by sex, origin and location


Nungua

Michel

Mensah

(AMA)

Camp

Korpe

(TMA)

(DED)

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Total

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Female

25

24

25

74

Male

32

36

37

105

Total

57

60

62

179

Migrants

111*

Indigenes

66

*two missing cases

Focus Group Discussions Eighty-six focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted in ten regions and twenty districts around the country by the LPRG. Each FGD was composed of an average of nine members who were mostly male, above 50 years of age, non-literate or with low levels of formal education. The FGDs were commonly conducted separately for land owners (and likely indigenes) and land tenants (both indigenes and migrants). The FGDs elicited responses along the following themes: ▪

importance of land in Ghana

▪

land tenure interests in Ghana

▪

the organization of land markets and its impacts on production

▪

land administration institutions—functions, relationships and challenges

▪

land tenure: trends and problems

▪

achieving efficiency and equity in land tenure: reforming existing arrangements and introducing new measures

▪

emerging issues

The present study extracted and analysed five focus groups from three districts in the GAR: one in Nungua for land owners, two in Michel camp (one each for land owners and land tenants), and two in Mensah Korpe (one each for land owners and land tenants).

Key Informant Interviews


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The LPRG conducted interviews with 67 traditional and community leaders around the country. In GAR, seven key informants (made up of four chiefs, two clan heads, and the sister of a clan head) were interviewed on the following aspects of land: ▪

Customary Land Tenure: Organisation and Access

▪

Land Transaction

▪

Land Conflicts and Resolution

▪

The State and Land Administration

▪

Land Banks and Land Nationalisation

▪

Environmental Degradation and Land Tenure Systems

▪

Summary and Conclusion

Institutional Surveys The LPRG data included interviews with staff of various land sector agencies in their main, regional and district offices. These included the Lands Commission, Survey Department, Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands, Town and Country Planning Department, among others. In each case, informants were asked about the functions, procedures and challenges of their department.

Data Analyses The study applied qualitative methods of analysis to the in-depth interviews with chiefs. Qualitative methodology is an important tool for studies that seek people’s reading of events and processes (Rossman & Rallis, 1988). The proposed study attempts to understand the perceptions of chiefs (and key members of their court) of the sources of insecurity of tenure in their traditional areas, and their description of the responses they have made to this situation. Specifically, grounded theory methodology was used for data analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1994). Grounded theory methodology essentially generates theory from data or, in some cases, elaborates on theory. While stressing the status of grounded theory methodology as a strategy rather than a set of procedures, Charmaz (2000) does suggest some useful steps in this analytical process, which will be adapted to this study. The procedure of constant Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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comparisons refers to comparing people, incidents and categories across a sample. In this case, we compare the different traditional areas to see what similarities and differences exist in the challenges to tenure security, and in the role of the chieftaincy in addressing this situation. Another tool of grounded theory methodology is attentiveness to the concepts and terms people use, so that coding themes and analytical categories are developed from the interviewees’ own responses. In addition, the individual survey responses for the GAR were subjected to quantitative analysis. These were mostly descriptive statistics, and cross-tabulations to identify how many people, and what kinds of people, report problems related to tenure security (i.e. difficulty of access, restrictions on use, susceptibility to loss of use or ownership, etc.).

Coding themes for qualitative data Analysis of the qualitative data took a three-step approach, where the same data was coded three times on different dimensions of the security question. o First, two independent coders coded the chieftaincy interviews for perceived sources of insecurity. o Secondly, the same data was coded for the responses the chiefs and elders reported to have made to the problem of insecurity of tenure. o Finally, within the above two codes (that is, sources of insecurity and responses to insecurity), we coded for insecurity issues that differentially affected different social categories of people (women versus men, migrants versus indigenes, landowners versus tenants), and different uses of land (agricultural, residential and industrial).


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CHAPTER FOUR

FINDINGS: PERCEPTIONS OF INSECURITY

In this chapter, we present the general structure and relationship to land of the three traditional areas in the Greater Accra Region (GAR) chosen for this study. We enquire into the meaning of tenure security for various groups. Primarily, we discuss the general sources of insecurity perceived by the chieftaincy institutions, as well as their account of how they have attempted to address these insecurities. Using secondary data from the Land Policy Reform in Ghana project (LPRG) – namely, the reports on household surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant and institutional interviews - we intersperse the chieftaincy’s accounts with the perspective of other groups and agencies, in order to understand how perceptions differ between these and the customary authorities.

Overview of Region and Traditional Areas The land mass of the GAR is the smallest among the ten administrative regions that make up Ghana. Nonetheless, the region has stature out of proportion to its size because the capital city of the country, Accra, is situated in the heart of the region. Accra is not only the administrative capital of Ghana but also the economic capital as its metropolis covers the industrial and port municipality of Tema. Most government and multinational companies have their headquarters located in the Accra metropolis, which is the largest city in Ghana. The GAR is traditionally dominated by the Ga-Dangme people who have inhabited the region since the 11th century. Apart from a small part of the region belonging to the Krobo, the Gas and Dangmes share the land making up the region. They have similar languages, and dialects that are mutually intelligible; share social institutions like family and traditional authority structures; perform similar rites, and festivals; and share traditional adornments, dishes and songs. A major characteristic of the Ga-Dangme people is that they have a patrilineal descent system which influences almost all social and cultural organizations. Each traditional area or settlement is made Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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up of groups of patrilineages or houses/clans which often have wulomɔ [priests] who perform both spiritual and secular duties (Arhin, 2002). Traditional institutions are predominantly male-dominated with a few female fetish priestesses and queen mothers performing minor functions. The Ga-speaking people settled in what is now the Accra metropolis and have the following traditional areas: the Ga Mashie, Osu, La, Teshie, Nungua, Tema and Kpone Traditional Areas. The traditional areas that fall under the Dangme-speaking localities in the Accra Plains and the Akuapem Ridge include the Ada, Ningo, Osudoku, Shai, Prampram and the Manya and Yilo Krobo. (All except the Manya and Yilo Krobo traditional area fall within the Greater Accra region.) The research sites for this study are the three traditional areas of Nungua, Kpone and Ada.

Nungua Traditional Area Nungua is a sprawling urban settlement in Accra situated along the coast between Teshie to the west and Tema to the east. Nungua stretches from the coast through the area covering the Spintex road, and Oyibi along the Adenta-Dodowa road. It lies within the two different administrative assemblies: the Accra Metropolitan Assembly and the Tema Municipal Assembly. The Accra metropolis alone has a population of approximately 4 million, of which close to 300,000 are of Nungua descent. The Nungua traditional area is approximately 20 kilometres from the centre of Accra with old buildings sited close to the sea and more recent developments further inland. Vast areas of Nungua have a combination of purpose-built structures with modern architectural designs, and estate housing undertaken by real estate developers to meet the growing demand for landed properties in Accra. Utility services are provided from the public mains, and most roads are well marked and tarred. In the Nungua traditional area, in-depth interviews were held with the paramount chief and the Dzasetse (the principal chief whose lineage enstools the paramount chief). In addition, a focus group discussion was held with the chiefs and elders of the Nungua traditional area. The interviews revealed that the bulk of Nungua Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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lands are under the control and management of the chief with the support of the traditional council. The paramount chief presides over all land transactions. He chairs all meetings of the Nungua Traditional Council which has a committee established to deliberate on land matters. The Paramount chief, the Gborbu Wulomɔ (the most senior traditional priest in Nungua), the Dzasetse (who presides over enstoolment of chiefs), Akwashongtse (commander of the asafo, or the traditional army) and the Mankralo (the chief in charge of development) all together allocate land and sign land documents. The paramount chief and other office holders within the Traditional Council keep records of land transactions and constitute the sole powers to deal in Nungua stool lands. All divisional chiefs who administer land operate under the supervision of the Paramount chief and the traditional council, who are only accountable to the people of Nungua.

Kpone Traditional Area Kpone is a fishing community about 15 kilometres to the east of Tema. It is a peri-urban settlement that stretches from the coastal area between Tema and Prampram to Mlitsakpo and Gbetsile. It has a population of approximately 20,000. Oral tradition has it that the inhabitants migrated from the Volta Region in the sixteen century to settle as farmers and fishermen. The town is accessed by a major road that connects the main Tema-Ada road and leads directly into town centre. On both sides of the road as one approaches the town centre are a combination of single and two-storey structures at different stages of construction. The old part of the town characterised by mud and thatch houses is sited closer to the sea but as the population has grown, newer structures have sprung up away from the sea. The growth of Tema as an industrial town has led to high influx of people acquiring land and residing in Kpone in order to commute to work. Roads in the town are well marked but untarred and most do not have drains. Basic amenities such as schools, clinics and police posts exist but residents have had to grapple with the issue of waste management.


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In the Kpone traditional area, in-depth interviews were conducted with the paramount chief, the Gbetsile chief and a former chairman of the Kpone Land Allocations Committee. According to the interviews, the paramount chief performs a similar role to that of the Nungua chief. He administers land matters with the assistance of a traditional council which represents all clans in Kpone, and a land allocation committee made of some elders from the traditional council. The land allocation committee has a surveyor attached to the group to give technical support. The sub-chiefs in the surrounding villages of Gbetsile, Sebrekpor, Mlistakpo, Appolonia and Gota administer Kpone stool lands on behalf of the paramount chief of Kpone (. The traditional council and land allocation committee meet and keep minutes and records of transactions.

Ada Traditional Area The Ada traditional area in the Dangme East District is a rural area sited along the lower reaches of Volta River. Access to the town is by a right turn at Ada junction, off the Tema-Sogakope main road. A vast expanse of grassland covers both sides of the main road that leads to the town. The bulk of the structures in the town are simple with old architectural designs. Fishing is the predominant occupation of the inhabitants In the Ada traditional area, sub-chiefs of seven land-owning clans or families administer land within their jurisdiction, but seek the paramount chief’s final assent in land transactions. This arrangement has persisted since 1996 when all land stakeholders agreed to make the paramount chief the final authority in steering the development of the traditional area. The sub-chiefs oversee land administration and allocation with the assistance of sub-divisional traditional councils which comprise of the Otsami (the sub-chief’s linguist), Asafoatse (leader of an asafo company), and representatives of each village. Secondary data on the Ada traditional area comprised of focus group discussions for land owners and tenants conducted by ISSER at Mensah Korpe. In addition, four key informant interviews were conducted in Mensah Korpe in 2005.


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Perceptions of land owners and users about the customary institutions According to the results of the LPRG household survey in the Greater Accra Region (GAR), the largest proportion of perceived the chiefs to be the main owners or custodians of land in the Greater Accra region. Individuals were perceived by respondents to own close to 28% of land in the region, compared to the other regions of Ghana where ownership of land by individuals was about 15% on the average (see Table 1). Table 1: Who Owns Land in GAR?

According to survey respondents, by the farm the most dominant avenue for owning land in the region (whether by the family or the chief) is through the lineage, accounting for 95.2% of responses (see Table 2). In our three research sites of Nungua, Kpone and Ada, the figure was 79%. Membership a lineage therefore allows one ownership, control or access to land. This confirms the central role of customary institutions in matters pertaining to land in GAR.


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Table 2: Mode of Land Acquisition

Thirty-six percent (108 out of 300) of respondents in the GAR stated that they had dealings with the customary institutions on the issue of land. About 70% said their interaction was in relation to a desire to acquire land. Some respondents did not specify why they acquire land (29.4%); others were more specific in stating they needed land for building a house (34%). Only 6.5% needed land for farming. For land acquisition and other purposes, 10.3% of respondents interacted with chiefs and family heads for singatures and valid documents. About 14.4% of respondents had dealings with chiefs and family heads for the purpose of setling land disputes while another 5.4% either paid homage or perfomed cultural rites associated with the land they occupy (see Table 3). Table 3: Nature of Transaction with Customary Land Institutions


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At the time of the survey, a majority of respondents (85.7%) said they had concluded their transactions with the customary institution, 7.5% were not concluded and 6.8% were still in progress. As Table 4 shows, respondents generally felt very satisfied with their interactions with chiefs,. Nearly 52 % gave a very good or excellent rating of their transaction. Table 4: Respondents Ratings of Transaction


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The preceding survey results indicate that people saw customary institutions, including chiefs, as being central to questions of land, dealt with them to a significant extent and, for the main part, in were satisfied with their interactions with these institutions. The further question is: do people want to see the customary institutions, and specifically chiefs, continue to play this important role in land matters? The response from the three traditional areas was largely in the affirmative: 66% in the Nungua traditional area opined that chiefs must remain trustees or owners of the land and/or should regulate all land. This result was echoed in the two other traditional areas: 62% in the Kpone peri-urban area, and 67% in the Ada rural area. Despite these expressions of faith, there was also the suggestion that these institutions need to undergo reform and, as Table 5 shows, the chieftaincies were identified by most GAR survey respondents as the customary land institution most in need of reform. Table 5: Respondents View of Customary Land Institutions in Need of Reform

One can infer that a major reason why people would want to see a reform in the customary institutions would be the threat of insecurity. When survey respondents in Nungua, Kpone and Ada were asked to indicate the nature of their problems with land, Table 6 shows that 31% of the responses were directly about insecurity in the process of acquiring, using or disposing of land. These included respondents who


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mentioned insecurity of tenure as a problem (9%), disputes between tenants and owners (16%), disputes over family land (3%), uncertainty about ownership (5%), and sale of land without owners’ approval (1%). However, even the most cited problem of high prices of land (approximately 69%) is also evidence a concern about security, as one considers that land is gradually going to those who have financial means, which implies that the economically disadvantaged will have harder access to land, or may even be in danger of losing the right to use land, if these lands are sold to the highest bidder. Table 6: Respondents perception of land problems in three research sites 70

69 high prices and scarcity

60 insecure tenure 50 40

disputes between owners & tenants

30

disputes over family land

20 10

13

uncertainty of ownership

9 3

5

1

0

sale of land without approval

1

It is worth noting that the perception of levels of insecurity did not differ widely across the three traditional areas despite the presumed differences in degree of commercialization and patterns of use across the traditional areas, which represent the spectrum of urban, peri-urban and rural settings. An important aspect of this study is to identify categories of people that are in danger of exclusion with regards to access and use of land. When it come to access and rights to land, it is reasonable to assume that a fault line will lie between landlords and tenants, as well as between males and females, and between indigenes and migrants. Indeed, the household surveys and focus group discussions show up differences in experiences across social groups.


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Out of the total respondents of the survey located in the Nungua, Kpone and Ada traditional areas, 34.4% of respondents considered themselves landowners, 27% tenants, and 31% where using lineage land for their occupations or livelihoods. In focus group discussions, some contributors were identified as tenants (meaning that they were renters of land) and others self-identified as landowners (meaning that they either directly owned land or belonged to land-owning families). The indications from the focus groups were that tenants would be more vulnerable than landowners, as one would expect. Among other reasons, the terms of acquisition and use of land for tenants were more restricted, and the conditions under which land could be taken away from them sometimes were arbitrary, as the following suggest: Disrespectful tenants are liable to lose their land if they offend their landlords. Also, tenants who fail to pay agreed compensation for land use risk losing the land. Land can also be taken from tenants who fail to put the land to productive use. For landlords, they make any changes to their land at will while tenants need to consult and seek approval from landowners before they make any changes to land use or development. [Summary of focus group discussion with landowners, Mensah Korpe, 2005] Women and migrants also reported insecurity-related land problems. The LPRG household survey reported that, across the nation and in the GAR, migrants were most challenged by the current land systems: 46.6% respondents in the GAR indicated that migrants had the most difficulties with accessing land. The second largest category was poor members (26.3%) of communities (26.3%) and then women (14.4%). In seeming contradiction to the survey results, the consensus coming out of focus group discussions in Nungua, Michel Camp and Mensah Korpe was that there was no discrimination in land rights based on origins or gender. We don’t discriminate against any group or individual. Men, women, migrants can all have access to land. So long as one has proper documents to attest ownership of land, no one can take land from any man, woman or migrant. [Focus Group Discussion with landowners, Nungua, 2005] About 20 years ago there was available land but now the prices have risen and there is no discrimination among people. It is your ability to pay for the land. [Focus Group Discussion with tenants, Michel Camp, 2005]


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Men, women and migrants have virtually equal opportunities or rights to land in Mensah Korpe. [Focus Group Discussion with tenants, Mensah Korpe, 2005] Despites these protestations of equity, the focus groups admitted significant differences in terms of access that could result in different experiences of security among women and migrants. Land is not sold it will be leased to you as a non-Nungua person. That person will give an appreciable number of drinks and money (‘tako’), [and] it will be higher than the one for an indigene. The land is then given to you. For housing, nothing else is required but for commercial purpose, there are more procedures to fulfil with the Nungua people, e.g. you have to employ some indigenes so if there is construction work, the indigenes will take part because it’s their inheritance. [Summary of focus group discussion with landowners, Nungua, 2005] Indigenes and migrants are treated alike except the terms of contract are more relaxed for the former. For an indigene, one’s ties to the family grants some access to land as parents can give their portion to them. For migrants, one can have access by asking the rightful owner to give him/her land. For indigenes, no one will be denied rights to land except in the case of a mentally deranged person. For migrants, land may only be leased but not given out on permanent basis…Indigenes and migrant have equal access to land in this time of land abundance. Discrimination in favour of indigene will only occur if land is scarce. [Summary of focus group discussion with land owners, Mensah Korpe, 2005] In addition to the variances one see across groups, there is also the variable of land use patterns and its effect of insecurity. For instance, respondents from Ada and Kpone suggested land for residential purposes tended to be more insulated than agricultural land from the problems of encroachments, loss of land and litigation. It is clear that the question of what constitute tenure insecurity depends on who makes that determination. For that reason, different groups may prioritise different forms of security, and therefore hold differing prescriptions for addressing the problem of tenure insecurity. The differential experiences of various social groups – landlords vs. tenants, men vs. women, migrants vs. indigenes - will be important to our subsequent discussion of the responses of the chieftaincy institution to insecurity. The customary institutions that are the focus of this study tend to be represented by indigene, male Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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landowners. It will, therefore, be interesting to examine whether the chieftaincy institutions perceive and respond to the insecurity issues that challenge other social categories of people.

Perceptions of chieftaincy institutions about land tenure insecurity Insecurity of tenures is a recurring challenge to the management of land by the chieftaincy institutions. From our analysis of primary data collected from the chieftaincy institutions in the Nungua, Kpone and Ada Traditional areas of GAR, the general sources of insecurity can be categorised as follows: o incomplete registration of allodial titles o unclear boundaries between and within traditional areas o chieftaincy disputes/changes in chieftaincy o weak management regimes for customary institutions - ad hoc nature of record keeping, lack of continuity in personnel o corruption and a general lack of transparency within the customary institutions o weak linkages with land agencies (distance as a deterrent, accessibility, affordability, lack of clarity of functions)

These sources of insecurity will be expanded on in our discussion in the next chapter on the responses of the chieftaincy institutions to the problem of insecurity. In that discussion, we will pay attention to the following. First, the nature of the concerns that the chieftaincy institutions express; how do they compare to the concerns expressed by other groups of people? That is, given that insecurity is experienced in different ways by different groups, are the customary institutions able to perceive the nuances of the issue of security across group, and as concerns different steps in the process of using or dealing in land? The sources of insecurity can be loosely divided into two categories: first are those concerns that pose a challenge to the allodial interests of the chieftaincies, and those that directly affect the secondary or derived rights of tenants, members of landholding families, purchasers of land, and so on. For instance, one can argue that Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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the first three sources of insecurity mentioned (incomplete registration of allodial titles, indeterminate boundaries, and chieftaincy disputes) speak more to the question of maintaining allodial holdings, while weak management systems may be more to the detriment of secondary rights holds such as lessees and buyers of land. In a sense, this is an artificial distinction, since one can argue that insecurity in primary rights will affect the security of secondary rights. However, given that the chieftaincy institutions claim allodial rights, it may be possible that their concern will only be with their own interests, and not necessary with the security of tenure of those to whom they grant land.

Also, one would expect that the sources of insecurity articulated by the

chieftaincy institutions will have differential impact on different aspects of land dealings from negotiation, to use, to disposal. In our discussion, we will attempt to bring out these nuances. Secondly, we will compare the list of sources of insecurity against the responses that they chieftaincy institutions make; that is, are these institutions able to completely and adequately address all the challenges that they themselves identify, or do they fall short in some respects? In this respect, the subsequent discussion on responses of chieftaincy institutions to insecurity will not merely list these responses, but will provide some evaluation or critique as well.


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CHAPTER FIVE

FINDINGS: RESPONSES TO INSECURITY

The members of the chieftaincy institutions in the Greater Accra Region recognize that there is a problem of tenure insecurity, and are able to identify its sources, as shown in the preceding chapter. They also respond to these issues of insecurity. Generally, customary institutions in the three selected traditional areas respond to changes through structures that are instituted at the level of each traditional setting to control land management; the broad range of processes of land acquisition, allocation, protection and conflict management; the process of engagement with land sector agencies, the courts and the state. The chapter documents the varied responses that the chieftaincy institutions have made to the threats of insecurity. However, some of these responses are inadequate to address the issues identified, or may themselves raise further challenges to security. Therefore, beyond description, the chapter also critiques these structures, processes and linkages created to address insecurity.

Structures There were two main structural responses made by the traditional areas to the question of land management in general, and to tenure insecurity in particular. The stool – the symbol of the chieftaincy – is itself an important institution in relation to land administration. In addition, each of the three traditional areas had a traditional council that historically have oversight in land matters, as part of a broader mandate to advise chiefs on matters of governance. The stool and traditional council are old structures and are not, in that sense, a response to insecurity; that is, they were not set up for the purpose of addressing land insecurity. However, we do argue that they have the potential to address insecurity through their reconstitution over time. A more recent innovation is the land allocation committees, which are set up for the purpose of managing land matters.


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The Stool The most important structure that potentially could assure tenure security is the institution of the stool. As occupants of the highest traditional seat within their communities, chiefs wield great authority, and that authority is strongly linked to their oversight of land, which has political, socio-economic and spiritual significance (Odotei & Awedoba, 2006). Some of their functions include holding lands in trust for the past, present and future generations, overseeing grants made on customary lands, and seeing to the disbursal of profits made on land. One of the first responses to the problem of insecurity has been in the reconfiguration of the stool over time. In the Ada traditional area where land is customarily owned by families and not by the stool, the paramount chief has established a land committee to oversee land administration and development in Ada. The committee was created in the aftermath of the Songhor lagoon impasse between the people of Ada and the Government of Ghana in the mid-1990s. In effect, the chief is appropriating, outside of the traditional order, certain rights over land presumably to protect the interests of the Ada people in their land. However, change can also be a source of insecurity because one way in which proper land administration can be compromised is through changes in occupancy of the stool. So much power is vested in the stool that a change in the occupant can mean a radical change in the administration of land. It could also result in a reconstitution and restructuring of bodies that are integral to land administration, such as the traditional councils and land allocations committees. In effect, chiefs can stand as a symbol of stability and order in land management, but their very position can also become a source of conflict, precisely because of its close connection to land. Thus, the very power wielded by chiefs over land is perhaps also the biggest threat to tenure security, especially when that power is contested. Chieftaincy disputes occur in traditional areas when factions from the same ruling house or competing ruling families protest a successor to a deceased chief. Among the three traditional areas under study, chieftaincy disputes were most common in the Nungua traditional area, which was also the most urbanised area with the highest degree of land commercialisation. There has been a long dispute in Nungua between two people Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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who both claim to be paramount chiefs. Despite years of state intervention and court rulings by the Supreme Court of Ghana, the traditional area is divided into two, and there are often clashes over land. The issue of chieftaincy disputes affects not only land owners, but also land users who may experience insecurity on the land they buy from contending land owners. In Nungua, for instance, a dispute over rights to the stool has adversely affected tenure security of lands granted in the area. Lessees have to make several payments to different factions on a single parcel of land to ward off threats of losing the land.

Traditional/Divisional Council According to traditional authorities interviewed in the three study areas, the traditional councils play a major role in managing land matters. Traditional councils comprise of paramount chiefs, sub-chiefs, and representatives of clans, gates and families that make up the traditional area. The paramount chief presides over the functions of the traditional council. The paramount chief of Ada Traditional area, Nene Kabu Abraham Akuaku III, explained the functions of traditional councils as follows: preservation of law and order, and the promotion of development and welfare of all citizens within each traditional area. Each traditional area within the GAR has a traditional council that has an office or a building where they meet basis to discuss leadership, development and land issues. The chief or his representative presides over all meetings convened by the traditional council. The traditional councils are an important to land management, however, it should be noted that they are not a body dedicated solely to land issues. Land administration, as it is practiced now, did not form part of the traditional council functions, but growing demand for land and the complexities in its management have resulted in chiefs and traditional councils dealing more with land issues than their core functions. [In-depth interview with paramount chief, Ada, Sept 2006]


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The traditional councils do not administer land comprehensively, but rather provide oversight and, where the need arises, resolve land litigations. Thus traditional councils face certain limitations where land administration is concerned. One such limitation has to with changes in the composition of the council over time. Variations in the membership of traditional councils can occur when people serve on council for short periods and are replaced. This situation is further aggravated by poor records keeping, a general lack of delegation, proper procedures and the absence of training and orientation of new members appointed to serve on the traditional council Another limitation of the traditional council is its semi-formal nature. Customs, traditions and rules are not well codified but are handed down by oral tradition. Without steps to preserve facts concerning customs and lands, the councils may find that rulings on land may not be consistent. Finally, there is the question of the relationship between the chief and the council. In the literature, the existence of a traditional council has been considered a major check on a chief’s power. However, it has also been noted that the composition of the traditional council and the relationship dynamics may make the council more sympathetic to the chief and therefore ineffectual in acting as a check on him (Ubink, 2006).

Land Allocation Committee The chieftaincy institutions in our interview acknowledged that within the past two decades, traditional areas in the region have been inundated with land-related challenges which are more than the normal working schedules of the traditional councils are capable of absorbing. As a response, the chiefs and land owning families in all three traditional areas have established land committees whose functions include, among others, the supervision of land allocation and the determination of land use patterns. Land committees also act as the main adjudicating body in cases of conflicts. The composition of land committees in Kpone, Ada and Nungua differ in size and operation. Common features are that each is chaired by a chief who is supported by co-opted members of the traditional council, some of whom perform secretarial, Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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record keeping and financial duties. In the Kpone traditional area, the Land Committee is chaired by the paramount chief. In addition to the members of the committee, a registrar is attached to the traditional council, and a surveyor who prepares the base plans and layouts of the area. In Ada, there are land committees at the divisional level, and one also in the paramountcy, created by the chief and with membership that includes chiefs and commoners, all nominated by the paramount chief. It should be noted that land committees exist both at the level of the traditional area and at the divisional level. Let us take the case of the Ada traditional area whose lands traditionally belong to seven land owning clan. The paramount chief has set up a land committee to oversee Ada lands, with membership that includes divisional chiefs and prominent citizens of Ada. It reports to the paramount chief. At the same time, there are divisional land committees at the level of the clans. For instance, within the land-owning Dangmebeawe clan of Ada, representatives of the six families or ‘gates’ within the clan and other communities members join the chief, a sub chief and Asafoatse (leader of an asafo company) to constitute the divisional land committee. It reports to the traditional council. Despite the existence of the Ada land committee, its ability to fulfil is mandate is challenged by a number of factors: First, the clan from which the paramount chief is selected does not own land, which means that paramount has less authority over land matters than chiefs in Kpone and Nungua who have lands directly under their control. This also means that the land committee which the paramount chief has instituted does not sit comfortably within the traditional set up. It is for this reason that the smaller land committees at the divisional or clan levels do not report to the larger Ada land committee, but instead to the traditional council, which is seen to have more legitimacy as a recognised traditional institution. This is a significant observation then that the land committees are new innovations meant to meet the emerging challenges of land administration, but their place in the traditional set up is still under negotiation. Another version of a land committee can be seen in the Nungua traditional area where there is a very strong link between the stool and land. Compared to Ada and to the Kpone stool lands which seem relatively more decentralised (where, for instance, the Gbetsile chief may lease land and merely inform the Kpone Paramount chief of the Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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deal), all land transactions in Nungua have been highly centralised since 1995 when a committee of enquiry into land conflict recommended that the paramount chief and the wulomɔ [chief priest] must jointly sign all land documents. An elder of Nungua confirmed this in an interview: “Before a piece of land is given to anyone, the paramount chief and the Gborbu Wulomɔ have to sign as co-donors of the Nungua stool land. Sometime ago, it was the chief alone who signs, and this brought a lot of quarrels which ended in court cases… The Mankralo and Akwashongtse and some elders from some houses witness the land transaction. [In-depth interview with Elder, Nungua, Sept 2006] Given the status of Nungua as an urbanized area with high demand for land, one might expect a dedicated body to handle land issues. What pertains instead, according to our respondents, is that the traditional council has the additional responsibility of overseeing land administration. A subset of the membership of the traditional council constitutes a non-permanent body to deal with land cases that are brought before it. At any time, other traditional authorities (such as sub-chiefs) who have direct stake in the land transaction or conflict in question will be invited to sittings. Obviously, there are implications to the ad hoc nature of the land committee in Nungua. First, other issues of concern to the traditional council are likely to takes precedence in the deliberations of the Nungua Traditional Council. This may not be the case in Kpone and Ada where land is the sole concern of the land committees. Also, the ad hoc land committee in Nungua is more likely to have its membership changing over time, which means that decisions over land may not be consistent over time. This can have implications for tenure security if land users cannot be sure that the rules governing land transaction and use are stable. Another challenge to the functioning of the land committees is that they do not have surveyors as committee members, or permanently hired staff. What tends to happen is that surveyors are brought in on case-by-case basis. Not having such expert knowledge among members, the land committees in Ada, Kpone and Nungua rely heavily on the judgement of surveyors in their decision-making process. The informal nature of the arrangement between the surveyors and customary institutions means that such a partnership does not have the security to last, and timely delivery of Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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services is not guaranteed. Respondents in Gbetsile in Kpone acknowledged the delays in performance as one of the frustrations they face in dealing with their surveyor. The danger of this over-reliance on a changing guard of individual surveyors was evidenced in Kpone when the customary authorities were forced to re-demarcate their lands after errors were detected in the original layout prepared by a surveyor. This created conflicts that led to litigations, and also resulted in both partial and complete loss of land by some lessees.

Processes Customary land management regimes have evolved over time in response to changing trends in the land sector, but Kasanga and Kotey (2001) report that, for many areas in the Greater Accra Region, rapid urbanisation, population pressure, governmental interferences (in the form of compulsory acquisitions and policy implementations) have pushed land delivery system to its breaking point. This means that strategies which hitherto provided the needed framework to govern the acquisition, use and disposal of customary lands no longer offer adequate security for land owners, tenants and buyers. Issues such as poor record keeping of transactions and the use of volunteers rather than permanent staff have conspired to undermine the tenure security. Traditionally, land allocation has been carried out through oral means or on informal basis. With the establishment of new structures (in particular the land committees), the processes of land allocation in these traditional areas have generally shifted to formal practices to help solve the problem of tenure insecurity. These include declarations on and registration of land, bureaucratisation of the application and allocation process, site inspections and new channels for conflict resolution.

Registration of allodial titles Land registration is an important security-enhancing measure although, as we have argued elsewhere in this paper, it is not the only or the most reliable means. A major issue coming out of in-depth interviews with members of chieftaincy institutions was the imperfections of allodial titles in land. In order for a customary Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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land owner to have the legal authority to grant lesser rights to individuals or groups, the “mother interest” must be registered. It is only after registration of the allodial title that recipients of subsequent grants have the legal right to register their own interest with the statutory land agencies and, as a result, achieve the level of security offered by formalization of titles. In the Ada traditional area, the Dangmebeawe and Kudragbe land owning clans gave indications of a time frame set up to complete land titling and layouts. In the Kpone traditional area, the paramount chief Nii Tetteh Otu II described to the research team the progress made by his stool in regularizing the allodial title covering the Kpone stool lands. From the standpoint of the chiefs, the need to initiate or continue the process of titling has come about as a result of the growing cases of double sale of land, and encroachment from real estate developers. However, the chiefs and elders in the Kpone and Ada study areas admitted to a failure to complete registration of allodial titles. They cited the financial costs involved coupled with the unclear and cumbersome nature of the registration process as deterrents. For instance, Nene Pediator of the Kudragbe clan in Ada complained about having to take several trips to the Lands Commission and Land Title Registry in vain. Our problem is registration of documents. You’ll do a document in Ada, come to Accra, they say go and come, you come again, this and that…We have been advised to do district or local land registry, so that the document goes to either to the assembly areas or an office right on Ada land. Then whoever is in the office here can check and know whether the guarantor is the right person. So that before he processes a document for Accra, he’s sure locally that it is indeed Okomo who is signing Okomo land, or Pediator who is signing for Pediator land. [In-depth interview with Sub-Chief, Ada, Sept 2006] Another challenge to registration of allodial interests is the ambiguous boundary lines between and within customary lands. A requirement in any land transaction as stated in Section 4(2) of the Conveyancing Decree 1973 (NRCD 75) is the preparation of a plan indicating the exact size of the land in question. Additionally, planning regulations require that customary land owners have qualified surveyors demarcate their lands into identifiable layouts. The challenge comes in when lands cannot be clearly identified. Without a clear knowledge of the exact size of allodial holdings, Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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title registration by customary institutions becomes problematic. A clear example is the dispute between Nungua and Teshie. The Nungua chief cited a case involving a lessee who acquired Nungua land from the Teshie stool and registered it at the Lands Commission. Sometimes, disputes over boundaries are fought internally between landholding clans within a traditional area. One example is when boundaries of secondary interests granted at Kpone had to be re-demarcated when errors were detected in the original layout prepared by another surveyor. The problem of unclear boundaries mentioned by the customary institutions is echoed in institutional interviews with the statutory agencies, who by and large recommend registration as a solution (ISSER, 2006b). The irony, however, is that some conflicts over boundaries can arise during the registration process. In other words, the attempt to register can itself start up disputes over boundaries, which is sometimes heightened with the involvement of the land agencies. For instance, interviews with various informants working with the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands across the country, a common problem bedevilling them in carrying out their duties was inaccurate record keeping and lack of logistics (ISSER, 2006b). Without the proper support from the land sector agencies, then, the process of registration could be contentious, and heighten insecurity. Therefore, the process of registration – which is seen as the quintessential answer to the insecurity problem – can in itself heighten the problems of insecurity. The question of incomplete registration of land is problematic for the traditional land owners. It can also affect the interests of purchasers and leaseholders, and this again has obvious implication for the security of secondary right holders. One can therefore question why, despite the challenges, the various traditional areas have not made more of a push to register their lands. The answer may lie in formal registration being only one means of security, and not necessarily the means most valued by traditional authorities. There is also indication that the priority of customary landowners in the study areas is in the security of their own allodial landholdings, and as long as they are able to transact in land, there is little motivation to regularise their title. Once those holdings did not come under direct challenge, there was little reason to use their financial resources to provide a more secured tenure to their lessees. In Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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Kpone, for instance, the stool conceded that their recent move to register their lands was primarily a response to the need to protect their allodial boundaries from encroachers, and only secondarily to address the desire of lessees to register their secondary rights with the proper statutory land institutions. Again in Gbetsile (which is part of Kpone), the traditional land authorities perceived the Tema Development Corporation as a threat when the agency queried the boundaries of Gbetsile land, and that was the cue for the Gbetsile chieftaincy to start the process of formally registering their allodial titles (although they have not yet completed the process).

Bureaucratization of application and allocation processes Customary land owners within the study area generally require a prospective land lessee to purchase, fill and submit an application form to the land committee as a first step in the acquisition process. Applicants fill these multiple forms for safe keeping in different locations. In Nungua, for instance, records of land transaction (five copies each) are kept at the traditional council and the palace of the paramount chief. The applicant retains a copy bearing the signatures of the land owners as evidence tenable in a traditional or statutory court. In most cases, applicants’ submission of forms goes with a presentation of drinks to the committee. The committee then compiles the forms, evaluates the application and communicates the decision to the applicant. In the event of a successful application, a date is fixed for a meeting to discuss the terms of payment and to schedule site visits. According to the chieftaincies interviewed, the advantages of this new process of land allocation include the generation of a database to inform traditional land owners on the general state of their land. It also creates transparency, accountability and continuity of all land transactions. All these help protect land tenants from challenges to the rights, or at the least provides them with a good basis to defend their rights when challenged. In the event of litigation over the ownership of land between two parties, members of the chieftaincy expressed their preparedness to face court summons and defend the rights of clients they have allocated parcels of land to. The land dispute involving Regimanuel Gray and ADDAS, another business entity, over a Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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parcel of land granted to the latter by the Nungua stool is a good case in point. During the trial, the stool went to court to defend Regimanuel Gray, whose land documents bore their signature. Despite these moves towards recording and formalising the process of land disbursal, there are still loopholes. Our in-depth interviews in the Nungua, Kpone and Ada traditional areas turned up evidences of record keeping covering past transactions, but upon scrutiny, these records were incomplete in Ada, and in Kpone, a respondent showed evidence of earlier attempts by the land committee to build data on their transactions but admitted with regret how the record keeping exercise was eventually discontinued with changes in personnel of the land committee. The paramount chief confirmed the practice by conceding that “though we have layouts showing plots, allocation and re-allocation of land does not reflect anywhere in our registry”. A further observation made in Kpone involved the case of allegedly missing land records. Whereas the past chairman of the land allocation committee showed the research team documentation of past transactions, the current registrar of the committee claimed he could not trace land records from his files. This has led to incidence of double sale of land and replacement of land to lessees who lost their holdings as a consequence. There is even some suggestion that increasing bureaucratization, especially in the commercialized urban land markets, may vest more power in the chiefs, which also allows for more abuse of power (Antwi & Quan, 2006). The use of paper and designated signature means that a chief may sign off on a transaction without any of the traditional checks of witnesses or inspections. The risk of abuse of authority is heightened when those signatures are not verified by the statutory bodies with which these documents are deposited. The Land Commission and the other chief are very close. We know what they are doing. I tried it myself, and I found that they charge you and share the money with the Lands Commission. I paid ¢10 million for lands that had already been registered with Lands. Since the old chief was not available, the new chief signed for us, and the Lands Commission accepted his signature...Instead of contacting the stool for land, prospective lessees go to the Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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Lands Commission where their experts check for vacant lands on the Nungua plan and bribe the officials to obtain get documents covering these lands. [In-depth in Nungua, Sept 2006]

Site Inspections Another practice that has been modified is the process of site inspection. Site inspections are undertaken by groups of men whom the traditional council or land committee select to accompany the surveyor and provide support during site allocation. They are usually not members of the traditional councils but are selected mostly based on their link to the stool or special knowledge. One problem with this setup is the absence of a standing field team with permanent members. For instance, in Ada, there were no specially elected persons from the traditional to accompany surveyors to the site. Rather, any member could be mandated by the elders to provide support to the surveyor on any given day. Knowledge of boundary demarcations was, therefore, thinly spread among field staff. The exception was in the Gbetsile sub-traditional area of Kpone where the chiefs and land committee explained that instead of constituting an ad hoc site inspection committee, some youth had been trained to work with the surveyor. In sum, though the process of site inspections is laudable in helping to reduce mistakes of multiple sale or lease of the same plots, it cannot help solve the problem of insecurity of tenure if it is not done by identifiable persons with specialized skills or knowledge.

Conflict resolution mechanisms In the past, conflict resolution mechanisms were built into the functions of most traditional institutions. Originally, chiefs summoned people against whom complaints had been lodged to the palace for a hearing. However, owing to the litany of land related conflicts, customary land institutions are devising new ways of dealing with land conflicts within their traditional areas. According to the Kpone paramount chief, the land committee is tasked with adjudicating cases of conflict that arise from


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land dealings in the traditional area. The records being compiled now by the land committee provide crucial evidence in the settlement of land conflicts.

Engagement In Ghana, the use of both statutory and customary laws in land administration and management requires an appreciable level of collaboration among statutory and customary institutions. From the standpoint of customary institutions, many issues have surfaced that indicate relational problems between statutory and customary institutions within the region. Generally, the three chieftaincy institutions interviewed reported on the number of ways they could relate to the land sector agencies (LSA): to make statutory declarations, process compensations for statutorily acquired lands, demarcate and plan layouts for customary land institutions, re-zone land, arbitrate in land litigation, and register family and stool lands. Though aware of the availability of these services, the chieftaincies do not actually have a very strong link with the statutory bodies. All the chiefs in the study areas highlighted the centralized nature of the LSAs as a major hindrance to their ability to engage effectively with them. Under the current land tenure system, some land sector agencies are enjoined by law to decentralise their offices to the district level and serve communities within the districts, but this has not been done in all cases. This was articulated by the land agencies themselves, in institutional interviews conducted by ISSER in 2005 with the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD), the Office for the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL), the Lands Commission, Land Title Registry, and Land Valuation Board, among other LSAs. The interviews further revealed that few decentralized agencies had the capacity to effectively deliver at the grassroots. One reason is that they have not been fully integrated into the local government structure. The result is that traditional authorities continue to deal with regional and national offices because district office lack logistics and resources to meet the needs of their clients. In the instance of the Ada traditional area, the TCPD is the only LSA attached to the District Assembly, yet it lacks the capacity to function independently of its regional office. Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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Lack of capacity was a challenge for other LSAs. Consistently in the institutional interviews, the problem of lack of resources came up, especially for regional and district offices of the various LSAs. One implication of not having easily accessible or well-resourced LSAs is that transacting business with those agencies involves higher costs. The members of the chieftaincy institutions interviewed maintained that they are unable to afford the expenditure of money and time needed to obtain the services of LSAs because of bureaucratic bottlenecks. In Ada, the paramount chief blamed the slow pace of land demarcation within the traditional area on the low resource base of the district TCPD office. On his part, the Kpone paramount chief blamed the incomplete demarcation and titling of land within his jurisdiction on the dysfunction of the statutory institutions, which has in turn led to much tension between the Kpone people and the Tema Development Corporation (TDC). This is from my own personal experience: even if we do all documentations and register everything to the lands department, land officers there -- in spite of the fact that we have all documents showing that we have registered the land -they are able to re-register the same land. That is my own experience there. Even when we did the declaration around the Gbetsile area, before we knew it, they had given it to [TDC]. [In-depth interview with paramount chief, Kpone, Sept, 2006]

The Nungua paramount chief also cited weak linkages with the statutory agencies as a reason for the experience of land insecurity in Ghana. “A chief can be on his stool, and land at Kpone would be sold without his knowledge. The government itself can tell you this land has been sold to it, and would not ask who the rightful owners of the land are.” Although the members of the chieftaincy have knowledge of the ways in which the LSA could be of use to them, in practice, the main ways in which in the traditional authorities in Nungua, Kpone and Ada reported engaging with land agencies was through the rather combative process of attempting to obtain compensation for lands compulsorily acquired by the state. This sets up an antagonistic relationship between Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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the two categories of institutions that share the responsibility of land administration in the country. This hostile relationship was confirmed by LSAs who mentioned the lack of cooperation from the customary institutions as one of the reasons for their inability to carry out their functions properly, as the following quotes illustrate: ▪ ▪ ▪

“Delays in getting names of land buyers from Traditional Councils and TCPD.” “Chiefs are not willing to allow us to go to their area of jurisdiction.” “Land users are not aware of our importance and functions. [There is] reluctant [on the part] of land users to register their lands. [ISSER, 2006b]

In summary, the preceding discussion illustrates that the chieftaincy institutions in the Greater Accra Region do acknowledge and respond to the threat of insecurity. In addition to traditional structures and processes, there have been recent innovations in the face of the increasing complexities of land management in the past decades such as the creation of land allocation committees, the process of site inspections, and the formalization of land transactions. The discussion shows that these responses have their limitations, either in conception or in implementation. One glaring inadequacy is in their bias towards preserving original interests, rather than in securing secondary rights. It was clear that some of the processes and institutions detailed in this chapter were undertaken primarily because of concerns about the security of allodial titles, while other glaring invasions of secondary rights were given little attention. A related bias is the concentration of the structures and processes on one aspect of land management, namely the state of acquisition, negotiation and registration. There is some rationale for this, since a lot of complications and contestations can arise at this stage. The following quote is taken from interview with the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL) – one of the agencies that work most closely with the chieftaincy institutions: The most frequently cited issues related to the very beginning stages of acquiring land – ascertaining where land is available, and identifying who has the authority to grant ownership/use of land…The process of registering land was also mentioned as being a problem to land security. Here the issue could either be with the registration process (e.g. the bureaucracy and cost involved) Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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or with the reluctance of land owners and users to register land (ISSER, 2006c). And so it appears that the land allocation committees, the traditional councils, and the stools are more preoccupied with transacting land, and less so with overseeing the use of land, once it is given out. Even the processes discussed in this chapter – e.g. formalization of applications, registration, and site inspections – are primarily focused on the acquisition stage. Of course, the more secure the land transaction is to begin with, the more secure will be access, use and disposal at latter stages. However, without a deliberate attempt to create mechanism that deal purposefully with the posttransaction use of land, the management of land will be inadequate to ensure security. A further omission that comes across in an analysis of the responses of these customary institutions is the lack of special provision for relatively disadvantaged groups. As discussed in Chapter Three, certain social groups experience insecurity more than others, in particular women and migrants. However, the chieftaincy institutions did not evince a special awareness of the difficulties of these social categories, nor did they provide additional or unique modifications in their structures, processes or linkages to take care of the needs of these groups. It should be noted that this is a general problem with all institutions, including land sector agencies (cf. ISSER, 2006b). A final critique of responses of the chieftaincy to insecurity is that these tend to favour certain uses of land over others. The move towards greater formalization of the structures and process of land negotiations, and the linkages to agencies, would work better in some instances than others to secure tenure. One can imagine, for instance, that a lessee of a large parcel of land for commercial or residential purposes may have greater security of tenure than a farmer who is using farming land on a share-cropping basis. The latter is less likely to go through the channels of the land allocation committee, or the formal application and revenue, and might not have the right to register his or her interests with the statutory agencies. In contrast, the person who is buying land to build or for business might be more likely to have available the structures and processes that the chieftaincy institutions have set in place. In addition


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to which, they would be protected by informal means of assuring security, such as building on the land.1 The next chapter discusses how the security-enhancing measures patterned by the chieftaincy institutions can be improved upon.

1

A number of cases were recounted in the indepth interviews where people were allowed to keep land illegally or improperly acquired merely because they had built on it. On the other hand, people could more easily lose farmland. It seemed therefore that developing on property provided an inherent means of security, while cultivating land was not as helpful in protecting against loss of land. Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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CHAPTER SIX

THE POTENTIAL FOR REFORM

In the previous chapter, we discussed the perception of insecurity by land owners and tenants, and the measures developed by the chieftaincy institutions to address insecurity. In this chapter, we present an assessment of the possibilities of reform, and make some recommendations about possible modifications in the land management systems of the chieftaincy institutions. In making recommendations, we attend to two dimensions of reform to the chieftaincies: there are internal changes to their administration of land, and there are changes to the broader political and social context in which they carry out their land functions. We also highlight the concept of Customary Land Secretariats (CLS) which are still in the piloting phase but which serves as an example of a purposeful effort to validate and support customary institutions in land administration.

Recommendations Continuity in land management: standing land committee From our analysis of interviews, one major problem of land management which results in insecurity is the lack of continuity in chieftaincy administrations. We gathered from our survey a number of accounts of an in-coming chief recruiting new people to serve on the traditional councils and land committees. The result is discontinuity in land administration where newly constituted traditional councils and land committees may over-turn or be in ignorance of previous decisions and transactions. Along similar lines, reliance on volunteers deprived the land management structure of the permanence needed to ensure that land grants were made in a systematic manner to avoid double sale of land, among other sources of insecurity. The first recommendation is to build on the land allocation committees that have become a feature of the customary systems. The duties of the land committees can be expanded beyond land allocation to actively managing land that is already in Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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use. This recommendation is drawn from the example in Kpone where the scope of authority of the land committees has been extended to adjudicating land disputes. If the land allocation committee was seen as technical advisor to the traditional council, then the choice and composition of members and their tenure might be more flexible. In addition to drawing from the traditional council, members of the lands allocation committees could be recruited from the wider community. Here, professionals such as surveyors, planners, lawyers and land economists may be coopted to be part of the land committees to improve land management in each traditional area. If there is such regular and institutionalised interaction, the traditional authorities over time will gain greater understanding of land issues so that that there is continuity and less confusion in managing land. Again, for continuity, members of the committee would serve terms that are staggered or overlap so that the situation does not arise where there is a wholesale changing of the guard. Admittedly, this recommendation may be difficult to carry out. Land is a highly political issue. Moreover, one cannot dictate the governance structure of the chieftaincies. However, this is a suggestion that could be presented to the chieftaincies as serving their interest in protecting their own rights to land, as well as the rights of others.

Continuity in land management: recording keeping Another reason for discontinuity in land administration which can bring about insecurity is poor record keeping. In the Kpone Traditional Area, for instance, the new registrar employed by the chieftaincy to serve the land committee claimed all documents before his tenure had gone missing. This situation allowed for the re-sale of land already sold by the previous land committee. Double sale of land is one of the sources of insecurity that even a casual observer of the urban land market would remark. If a system of good records management could be well implemented, where documents, minutes, ledgers and duplicate plans could be collected in multiple copies, it would reduce this problem. For rural and peri-urban areas where population sizes are smaller compared to the urban areas and where there is less pressure on land, Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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ledgers, minutes and duplicate plans can be used. Copies of these documents could be kept by the traditional council, at the Lands Commission, and also at the National Archives. For an urbanised area like Nungua with huge pressures and challenges, an even more efficient system would be to keep electronic copies of these documents on computers and other storage devices to serve as backups. Part of the problem of inadequate documentation could be solved by the CLS. One of the mandates of the secretariats is to improve the management systems of the customary land institutions. However, in practice, the CSLs are bedevilled by questions about questions of control and resources, among others, that hinder this goal. Working on sorting out the challenges with the CLS could have a beneficial impact on the traditional land administration systems. In the interim, volunteers, youth and family members who assist in the processing and documenting papers on land may be trained on basics of records keeping. The training may be done in-house but, in addition, persons involved may be sent on familiarization trips to the Gbawe CLS, which is generally regarded as a model for other CLS.

Adequate resources: training of efficient and knowledge personnel As a question of ensuring both continuity in administration and the availability of trained persons, customary landowners need to review the ad hoc practice of site selection teams for prospective lessees. This makes it possible for any member of the royal court or a land-owning family present at the time of the transaction to accompany prospective lessees to the field. The practice of having a standing team for site inspections can help reduce the incidence of multiple sale of land, and promote continuity in land management. Additionally, members of the proposed standing inspection teams could be trained in the basic surveying techniques so they are able to provide informed reports to the land committees and the traditional council. (This particular recommendation derives from the reported practice in Kpone Traditional Area where youth from the area had been trained to carry out inspections. This is an exercise that could extend to other areas).


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Adequate resources: financing from ground rent From our data, one major problem hampering the customary land administration was the lack of financial resources. This has an impact on their ability to ensure security of their own ownership or trusteeship of land, which has ripple effects on the security of rights of individuals and groups who transact land with the traditional institutions. An example of the effect of lack of finances mentioned in all three traditional areas is unclear demarcation of lands. The failure to completely register primary rights to land was put down to inadequate resources to follow up on the process with the statutory agencies For instance, the sub-chief of one of the Ada clans attributed the slow pace of land demarcation to the financial burden of commuting between Accra and Ada the multiple times it would take to complete the process. One recommendation is that an area Nungua that has high value developments can collaborate with the OASL in the ground rent collection, and rely on revenue from ground rent to secure their tenure and the tenure of their lessees. For a rural setting like Ada, where land values are low and the major land use is agriculture, returns from annual ground rent may not be substantial and will therefore not be an effective strategy for revenue generation. Setting aside a portion of monies paid by lessees would be a more effective strategy towards mobilising revenue to secure their tenure. The effectiveness of these strategies will depend on the accountability of chiefs, an issue we address in the next recommendation.

Accountability The use of funds generated from land transaction has been one cause of conflicts in the traditional areas under study. It is heartening that members of the traditional set up themselves recognise that this is an issue that needs to be addressed. Some chiefs and family heads within the areas of the study advocated that stools and family heads account for the proceeds of land to all subjects and family members. This study recommends that beyond the current practice of rendering account (orally) on annual basis to representatives of families and individuals, accounts and reports should be documented and disseminated regularly, particularly to the youth and asafo groups Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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who tend to be at the forefront of the agitations against chiefs. This is a recommendation that should also be presented to the OASL, which does not give public account of the monies it collects and disburses (Quan & Antwi, 2006).

Addressing differential incidence and impact of insecurity The impression was given by the chiefs and elders in our interviews that gender and origins are not a consideration when the customary land institutions deal with tenants or buyers of land. However, the LPRG report on the household surveys indicate that migrants, women and the poor perceive themselves to be disproportionately and negatively affected by the current land tenure arrangements (ISSER, 2005). There is obviously a disjuncture between the experiences of these groups and the (non)response of the chieftaincy institutions. It is important that these traditional institutions recognise and address the situation. One remedy that could be put offered is to give women, migrants, youth and other socially disadvantaged groups seats on the lands committee. As we have recommended above, if appointments to the land committees are viewed as administrative and social as well as political, then it should be possible for the chiefs to nominate women, migrants and others from the community who can at least have a voice on the land committee, if not a direct vote. This action, even if carried out, might have only limited impact, since the underlying causes of insecurity vary within and across social categories, and sometimes are beyond the direct control of the chiefs. However, giving these groups voice in the traditional setup will raise their visibility, and help bring their issues into better light.

Mapping out clear roles and rules for CLSs The establishment of the CLS is the government’s recognition of the weaknesses in the management regimes of the traditional authorities, which impacts negatively on tenure security. The goal is to strengthen the arm of customary landowners to adequately deal with challenges arising from the dynamic nature of the land market.


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Laudable as this objective is, the exercise has suffered from unclear chains of command and guidelines regarding the payment of the staff of the secretariats, and the nature of its interaction with statutory land institutions. These issues need to be addressed to ensure that the relationship between these secretariats and the statutory bodies become properly defined and collaborative. Essentially, the study recommends an elaborate process of involving customary land institutions and traditional authorities, the youth and other key stakeholders in the design of CLS. This is to dispel present notions that CLS are imposition from governments. In this regard, it is important for state institutions and the LAP to play the role of only facilitators of the CLS and not be seen to manipulate the process.

Conclusion The optimism about the ability of the chieftaincy institutions to be agents in the land reform process is not misplaced. Our study found that the chieftaincies, working with other customary and statutory land institutions, have introduced structures, process and linkages that support their attempts at ensuring tenure security. This is not to say that the responses are adequate, but it does point out that there are steps being taken by the customary institutions that should be supported or modified to make land reform a successful exercise.


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REFERENCES Agbosu, L.K. (1990). Land registration in ghana: Past Present and the Future. Journal of African Law, 34(2), 104-127. Agbosu, L., Awumbila, M., Duwuona-Hammond, C. & Tsikata, D. (2006). Customary and statutory land tenure and land policy in Ghana. Unpublished report, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana at Legon. Alhasan, O. (2006). Traditional authorities and sustainable development: Chiefs and resource management in Ghana. In I. K. Odotei & A.K. Awedoba (Eds.), Chieftaincy in Ghana: Culture, governance and development. Legon: SubSaharan Publishers. Amanor, K. (2001). Land, labour and the family in Southern Ghana: A critique of land policy under neo-liberalisation. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute Amanor, K.S. (2006). The changing face of customary land tenure. Paper presented at the International Seminar on Contesting Land and Custom in Ghana: State, Chief and Citizen in Accra on 28 September, 2006. Arhin, K. (2002). The political systems of Ghana: Background to transformations in traditional authority in the colonial and post-colonial periods. Lagos: Ford Foundation. Aryeetey, E., Al-Hassan, R.M., Asuming-Brempong, S., & Twerefou, D.K. (2007). The organization of land markets and production in Ghana (Technical Publication No. 73). Legon: Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER). Asabere, P.K. (1994). Public Policy and the Emergent African Land Tenure System: the Case of Ghana. Journal of Black Studies, 24(3), 281-289. Asiamah, A.E.A. (2000). The mass factor in rural politics: The case of the Asafo Revolution in Kwahu political history. Accra: Ghana University Press. Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. de Soto, H. (2003). Why capitalism triumphs in the West and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books. Fiadzigbey, M. (2006, September). Customary land administration in Ghana. Unpublished paper presented at a seminar organised by the Ghana Institute of


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Surveyors/Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands at GIMPA, Legon, 27-30 September, 2006. Glaser, B., & Strauss, A. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Gyasi, E.A. (1994). The Adaptability of African Communal Land Tenure to Economic Opportunity: The Example of Land Acquisition for Oil Palm Farming in Ghana. Journal of the International African Institute, 64(3), 391-405. ISSER (2005). Land policy in Ghana research project: Report on land tenure and land policy research survey, July. Unpublished report, Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana at Legon. ISSER (2006, May). Institutional and legal issues in land tenure policy in Ghana. Unpublished paper presented at national dissemination workshop organised by the ISSER/USAID Land Policy Reform Project, Accra, 8 May, 2006. ISSER (2006a). State of the Ghanaian economy in 2005. Legon: Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER). ISSER (2006b). Land policy in Ghana research project: Report on statutory land institutions’ survey. Unpublished report, Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana at Legon. ISSER (2006c). Land policy in Ghana research project: Key informant interview report. Unpublished report, Institute for Statistical, Social and Economic Research, University of Ghana at Legon. Kasanga, K. & Kotey, N.A. (2001). Land Management in Ghana: Building on Tradition and Modernity. International Institute for environment and Development. Nottingham: Russell Press. Kotey, A.N. & Tsikata, D. (1998). Gender relations and land in Ghana. In A. Kuenyehia (Ed.), Women and law in West Africa: Situational analysis of some key issues affecting women. Accra: WALWA. Larbi, O. (2006, September). Customary land administration in Ghana: The way forward. Unpublished paper presented at a seminar organised by the Ghana Institute of Surveyors/Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands at GIMPA, Legon, 27-30 September, 2006. Migot-Adholla, S.E., Benneh, G., Place, F. & Atsu, S. (1994). Land, security of tenure and productivity in Ghana. In Bruce and Migot-Adholla (Eds.), Searching for land tenure security. Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishing Co.


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Odotei, I. K. & Awedoba, A. K. (2006). Introduction. In I. K. Odotei & A.K. Awedoba (Eds.), Chieftaincy in Ghana: Culture, governance and development. Legon: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Payne, G. (1997). Urban land tenure and property rights in developing countries: A review. London: IT Publications/ODA. Quan, J. & Antwi, Y. A. (2006). State intervention in customary land management in Ghana: Risks and opportunities of development aid. Paper presented at the International Seminar on Contesting Land and Custom In Ghana: State, Chief and Citizen in Accra on 28 September, 2006. Quan, J., Tan, S.F. & Toulmin, C. (Eds.). (2004). Land in Africa: Market Asset or Secure Livelihoods? Proceedings and Summary of Conclusion from the Land in Africa conference held in London, November 8-9, 2004. Quarcoopome, S. S. (2006). The decline of traditioanl authority: The case of the Ga Mashie State of Accra. In I. K. Odotei & A.K. Awedoba (Eds.), Chieftaincy in Ghana: Culture, governance and development. Legon: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Rathbone, R. (1993) Murder and politics in colonial Ghana. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Rathbone, R. (2000). Nkrumah and the chiefs: The politics of chieftaincy in Ghana, 1951-60. Oxford: James Currey. Rathbone, R. (1993) Murder and Politics in Colonial Ghana. New Haven: Yale University Press. Rossman, G. B., & Rallis, S. F. (1988). Learning in the field: An introduction to qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. M. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Strauss, A. L., & Corbin, J. (1994). Grounded theory methodology: An overview. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Ubink, J. (2006). Struggles for land in peri-urban Kumasi and their effect on popular perceptions of chiefs and chieftaincy. Paper presented at the International Seminar on Contesting Land and Custom in Ghana: State, Chief and Citizen in Accra on 28th September, 2006.


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Toulmin, C. & Quan, J. (Eds.) (2000). Evolving land rights, policy and tenure in Africa. London: DFID/IIED/NRI. Whitehead, A. & Tsikata, D. (2003). Policy Discourses on Women’s Land Rights in sub-Saharan Africa: The Implications of the Re-Turn to the Customary. Journal of Agrarian Change, 3 (1&2), 67-112.


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Appendix A: Indepth Interview Guide

INSTITUTE OF STATISTICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (ISSER)

LAND POLICY IN GHANA RESEARCH PROJECT

LAND TENURE SURVEY

CUSTOMARY INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES

INDEPTH INTERVIEW

1. Region………………………………….. 2. District ………………………………. 3. Locality …………………………………. 4. Interviewer ………………………………………. 5. Name of Institution ……………………………………………………………....... 6. Position of Respondent…………………………………………………………

Date:


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1. Please tell the story of how this stool came into being.

2. What do you think are the responsibilities of the stool? And when it comes to land…? [Probe for the individuals who constitute these customary land institutions and what function each person performs].

3.

How has the institution changed with time with respect to land administration (before you tenure and since you took office)?

4. Can you tell us about the following, using examples of past experiences. [Probe for detailed stories of past incidents].

5. When you are transacting a land deal, in what ways do you make sure that a person’s right to the land is protected? [Probe for the different procedures used for different people (e.g. members of the ethnic group, strangers, government) and for different purposes (e.g. farming, business, residence, development projects)]?

6. Once land has been transferred (leased, bought, etc) how does the stool protect the person’s right to land? 7. What about people who don’t own land but only use land because it belongs to their family or their husband, etc – what kinds of protection do they have?

8. What are some of the things that make it difficult for people to hold on to land that they own or that they use? [Probe for the different ways in which tenure insecurity affects different kinds of people e.g. women who use land that their husbands own; strangers who acquire land to build houses; family members who use family land, etc. Are some people more insecure than others?] Anyidoho, Clottey & Amanquah

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9. What can the stool do in cases where people’s rights to land are threatened?

10. What makes it difficult for the stool to provide this kind of security for people in this area?

11. Why do you think there are conflicts over land in this area? [Probe for different types of conflict].

12. How do you go about solving these different types of conflicts? [Probe for processes and levels of involvement of different people. In what circumstances will a case be settled in the family, in the palace, in the courts? Ask for specific cases].

13. To what extent are decisions made by customary institutions on disputes accepted by the people involved? By the statutory institutions such as the Lands Commission?

14. What is the main thing the government needs to do it easier for people in this area to protect their interests in land?

15. What do you think the government is doing to secure the interest of people who own or use land in this area? What is the one most important thing the government needs to do to improve security? [Probe for how these apply to different types of people – those with undeveloped property; those with farms; indigenes and strangers, etc.]

16. What must government do or not do help you in your task of managing land?


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Appendix B: Profile of key statutory land agencies Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands An attempt to ensure a fair and equitable disbursement of stool land revenue coupled with the desire for the productive use of the revenue to beneficiary communities prompted the government to provide the legal framework for the establishment of the Office under the 1992 Constitution. 1994 witnessed the passage of the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands Act (Act 481). However, it was not until October 1996 that the Office actually started operation. Currently, the Office is headed by the Administrator and has seven regional offices namely; Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western, Northern, Eastern, Brong Ahafo and the Central Region, and it operate in seventy district offices throughout the Country. The Office in addition engages the services of 500 commissioned collectors. The Office is mandated under the Act 481 to undertake the following functions: o Establish Stool Lands accounts for each Stool into which shall be paid rents, dues, royalties, revenues or other payment whether in the nature of income or capital from Stool Lands. o Collect all such rents, dues, royalties, revenues or other payments whether in the nature of income or capital and to account for them to the beneficiaries. o Disburse such revenues according to the Constitutional formula: o Coordinate with the Lands Commission and other relevant public agencies, stools and traditional authorities in preparing policy framework for the rational productive development of stool lands. o Consult stools and other traditional authorities on matters relating to the administration and development of stool lands. o Resolve conflict through alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Lands Commission The Lands Commission was established with the coming into force of the 1969 Constitution. Article 163 (5) of the 1969 Constitution stipulated that: “The Lands Commission shall hold and manage to the exclusion of any other person or authority any land or minerals vested in the President by this Constitution or any other law or vested in the Commission by any law or acquired by the Government and shall have such other functions in relation thereto, as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament”. The Lands Commission was initially made an agency under the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. The Commission’s functions and ministerial placement has however changed over the years to reflect the changes in the socio-economic and political goals of successive governments. In a bid to grant greater autonomy and insulate the Lands Commission from party political influences and considerations, the 1979 Constitution (Article 189 (7) of the 1979 Constitution stipulated: “In the performance of any of its functions under this Constitution or any other law the Lands Commission shall be subject only to this


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Constitution and shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority”) placed it directly under the President. The Lands Commission currently operates under the Lands Commission Act 1994 (Act 483) with the advent of the 1992 Constitution. The Constitution provides for the establishment of a national Lands Commission, along with ten regional Lands Commissions supported by a Lands Commission Secretariat. The activities of all the Regional Lands Commissions shall be co-ordinated by the Lands Commission. While appointments to the Lands Commission are made by the President, members of the Regional Lands Commission are appointed by the Minister responsible for Lands and Forestry. Article 258 (1) of the 1992 Constitution spells out the functions of the national and regional Lands Commissions as follows: “• To manage public lands and any lands vested in the president or the Commission on behalf of the government. • To advise the government, local and traditional authorities on the policy framework for the development of specific areas to ensure that the development of individual pieces of land is co-ordinated with the relevant development plan for the area concerned. • To formulate and submit to government recommendations on national policy with respect to land use and capability. • To advise on, and assist in, the execution of a comprehensive programme for the registration of title to land throughout Ghana.”

Survey Department Established in 1901 as the Mines Survey Department, it is the oldest of the land administration agencies. It became a fully fledged department in 1907 and concentrated on surveying for mining concessions, forest reserves, infrastructure, particularly railways and roads, and development planning schemes. In 1908, it was re-designated Survey Department and is currently governed by the Survey Act, 1962 (Act 127). Survey Department is headed by a Director and supported by ten (10) Regional Surveyors in charge of the regional offices. The Survey Department has been tasked by law to among others, o Plan, supervise and execute all national surveys and mapping o Produce base maps, charts, plans and substitutions required for socio-economic development. o License and supervise surveys of licensed surveyors undertaken for various individuals and for government departments and agencies. o Undertake aerial surveys, photographic specifications, supervisions and storage for public use.


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