The TDC Development Company Limited (TDC) has warned that persons who acquired lands from the Tema Acquisition Area risk losing the lands if they failed to develop them within two years.

It said the TDC would use proper legal processes to take back those lands through a re-entry process.

"Anybody who owns land within the Tema Acquisition area per our contract must develop those lands within two years of acquisition or risk losing the lands because a re-entry will be done to revise the lands given to them," Mr Ian Okwei, TDC Protocol and Administrative Officer stated.

Mr Okwei disclosed this at the fourth GNA Stakeholder Engagement and Workers' Appreciation Day Seminar at the Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Office.

"TDC is embarking on a re-entry drive to reclaim all lands that have not been developed two years after their acquisition," he said.

The monthly Stakeholder Engagement, a platform created to allow state and non-state stakeholders to interact with journalists, is an avenue to address national issues and offer the stakeholders opportunity to discuss their mandate.

According to the TDC's conditions for serviced lands, there is a 60-year-term, commencing from the date right of entry was granted for which land is leased, with an option to renew for a further term of ten years.

For the building period, the condition states that "the leasee shall be expected to commence building operations within six months of the site being handed over, subject to reasonable extension for a legitimate cause and to have fully developed within two years from the date right of entry was granted."

He said in areas such as Community 25 and others, individuals who had acquired lands but had not developed them were written to and failure to heed to the acquisition conditions would lead to the lands being reclaimed and reallocated.

He said some areas around Community 6, 10, 12, had become a haven for criminals who used those areas as hideouts while others had unfortunately become slums because persons who acquired those lands had left it fallow.

He noted that in Community 25 for instance, the whole enclave was initially given out to the military as a range, but when it was realised that communities like Gulf City were closing up,

TDC wrote to the military, and took over those lands and developed it into a residential area.

Mr Okwei explained that the company usually embarked on developments to suit current dynamics and as such the company undertook a routine review of its layouts every 15 to 25 years based on current land demands.

He said such demands informed the TDC in its development whether to go vertical structurally or otherwise, adding that in places like Site One, Two and 21, no one had a lease over their land because TDC anticipated that there would be a major market in that enclave thus the need for vertical structures, to suit the new commercial dynamics likely to spring up.

Mr George Okwabi Frimpong, a long-standing member of the Licensed Surveyors Association of Ghana (LISAG), called on the TDC to be firm in carrying out its mandate and not undermine its authority in an attempt to please parties involved in land issues.

He advised the public to be wary of the activities of unqualified and unauthorized persons parading as land surveyors.

Mr Okwabi Frimpong, who is a retired staff of the Lands Commission, further called on the public to report such unauthorized persons as their actions mostly led to severe consequences of litigation and loss of lawfully acquired interest in the land.