The Member of Parliament for the Kwahu Afram Plains North constituency, Worlase Kpeli has expressed concerns about the country’s seeming interest in employing curative approach in dealing with land disputes that has rather contributed to the increasing conflicts across the country.
According to him, the country should rather adopt the corrective approach which focuses on identifying the root cause of the problem, take actions to fix it in order to prevent the recurrence of land related conflicts in the country as compared to other jurisdictions.
“As a country, in my view, we mostly interested in curative measures rather than the preventive measures that would not put us into such situations. We cannot talk of indigenous conflicts in Ghana when we leave out land and land boundaries. Travelling somewhere in Africa, land administration system alone has been able to cure a lot of conflicts among tribes, but as a country, we are looking at a conflict which is a result of something, but we are not looking at what is causing that result. When we look at conflicts that we can mention of like Nkonya- Alavanyo, Peki-Tsito, all these conflicts are as a result of land disputes. If as a country we can put measures in demarcating clear boundaries of traditional areas, and within and among tribes, I think we would have been curing part, largely of the conflict that we would have been curing today”, he stated.
Mr Worlase Kpeli who is an Independent Legislator said these on the floor of parliament on Wednesday 5, February, 2025 in a contribution to a statement made by the Member for Nkwanta South, Geofferey Kini on the recent violent conflict that ensued among some ethnics groups in the area as a result of land disputes.
The lawmaker who is a legal practitioner observed that other countries who came to learn from Ghana’s land administration system were able to resolve their land related disputes but the country itself failed maximize its own laws.
“Mr Speaker, countries came to Ghana and went into this land administration system and were able, through mediation and conciliation set up boundaries
The young energetic lawmaker has therefore called on the ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to intervene in finding a lasting solution to the many land related disputes across the country.
He also decried the age old practice of deploying security forces to quell conflicts only for the conflicts to require immediately the security withdraws from those areas and urged the need for the state through the sector ministry to provide leadership in finding a lasting solution to the challenge.
“It is about time that we try as much as possible to cure the once we are seeing now. We should as a house bring out policies that will instil the kind of boundary discipline we want to have among the people of Ghana, so as to cure this kind of conflicts. I will be glad if the ministry of lands and natural resources, would move into these areas as soon as possible and meet with the traditional leaders. For what I know about tradition, whatever is even spoilt can even cured and become the tradition of the next generation. And if we move in that throughout the country, we would have solve a lot of conflicts”, Hon Kpeli stated.
By: Christian Kpesese
