The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor, says government is in the process of rolling out a new policy on property rates for appropriate rates to be charged on every structure.
He said the process required multi-sectoral efforts and that his Ministry would collaborate with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to promulgate a legislative instrument that would ensure that land was considered a vital ingredient in evaluating the value of any property in the country.
“The current law that regulates property rates cannot include land as a variable or ingredient for valuation of property and so you value the property based on the structure and not the value of the land and I think it’s inequitable and unfair. Therefore the new policy would ensure equity in property valuation,” Mr. Jinapor emphasised.
Additionally, a Committee was set up to take inventory of all state acquired lands and ensure that all vested lands were protected from encroachment.
Mr. Jinapor announced this in Accra on Tuesday when the management of Lands Commission updated the media on its digital transformation programme to ensure efficient delivery of land services.
So far, with support from the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), Lands Commission had completed appraisal of property rates of 75 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) nationwide.
Mr. Jinapor expressed government’s commitment to reforming the land administration system in the country by leveraging on technology to digitise all land records for efficient service delivery.
The Minister said government would work with the private sector in that endeavour and was of the belief that by the first quarter of next year, all the digitization interventions rolled out by the Commission would take shape.
