President John Dramani Mahama has lifted the ban on the sale, lease and pro­cessing of state and public lands.

Inaugurating the newly constituted Board of the Lands Commis­sion in Accra yesterday, President Mahama announced a new framework to ensure transparency and accountability in Ghana’s land administration system.

President John Mahama swearing in the newly constituted Board of the Lands Commission

According to President Mahama, the embargo on state and public land transac­tions, which was imposed in January this year, has revealed major land tenure weak­nesses that required urgent reforms.

In this regard, he said all future land transactions would be subjected to trans­parent, digitally verified processes, under a strict oversight regime to ensure integrity and restore trust in the land administration system.

“The lifting of the ban does not signify a return to business as usual. It signals a new disciplined era of land management. We are embarking on a reset that prioritis­es transparency, fairness, and justice in land administration,” President Mahama stated.

To ensure efficiency in land administra­tion, President Mahama said no land doc­ument should take more than 30 working days to be processed.

No Ghanaian, President Mahama stated, should under any circumstance pay bribes or know someone at the top to be able to register their land.

“Corruption within the Lands Commis­sion will no longer be tolerated. I expect the Commission’s leadership to institute strict internal accountability measures,” he said.

“Let this commission be one of work ethics, transparency, and discipline. The days of absenteeism, file manipulation, and deliberate delays to exact bribes must come to an end.”

Revenue generated from the operations of the Commission must be properly ac­counted for and used for enhanced service delivery and not for personal enrichment, the President cautioned.

He said the government was keen on reaching a social pact with traditional au­thorities in the administration of lands as the Chieftaincy institution controls over 80 per cent of all lands in the country.

The Presidents said as part of the reforms, all customary land transactions would be digitally registered and publicly accessible.

He said training and technical support would be given to traditional leaders on how to register their lands, guarantee equitable land access to women, youth and vulnerable groups and promote fair distri­bution of revenues from natural resources to affected communities.

He tasked the Lands Commission to work with the Land Use and Spatial Plan­ning Authority and Metropolitan, Munic­ipal and District Assemblies to enforce zoning and planning regulations to protect public lands reserved for social amenities.

The 25-Member Board is chaired by Wordsworth Odame Larbi. Also on the Board is Osagyefo Oseadeyo Agyemang Badu II, representing the National House of Chiefs, Williams Orleans Oduro, GBA, and Charles Sagoe, Ghana Institution of Surveyors.

There are also representatives from all 16 Regional Land Commissions, the National Association of Fishermen and Farmers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Lands Ministry and the Execu­tive Secretary of the Lands Commission.