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Land Guards were Politically Nurtured
By: Franklin Cudjoe
There are two important traditional maxims in Ghana well amplified by the predominant Akan ethnic group as “Tumi nyinaa ne asase” and “asase ye dur” which literally translates as “all power emanates from land” and “land is mighty” respectively. Economically, land symbolizes power, life's sustainer, might, wealth, and authority. So it is not entirely surprising that nations have been to war over small tracts of physical land (including what’s beneath) and the space above it. However, the most egregious of land disputes is the one that occurs in country. Apart from the loss life and property, it is a disincentive to investment. What is reprehensible is when the state, supposedly a protector of life and property imperceptibly or otherwise becomes a facilitator of such feuds. Many media editorial commentaries on the recent fiat by government that land guards have been banned all danced around the problem as they heaped praises on the Interior Minister for such a declaration. Within four days of such declaration land guards were at it again, pulling down a local authority primary school building in one region and maiming alleged encroachers with guns and machetes in another. Clearly that fiat of an order was greeted with scorn. Just who has nurtured these land guards? Our anti-colonial leaders vehemently opposed British legal tricks in usurping our lands in 1894 and 1897 when they passed the obnoxious lands bill in order to vest large unused lands, forests, and minerals in the Crown. However, post independence land policy was socialist inside out with many threats issued to Chiefs (the custodians of customary lands in Ghana) for large collectivist industrial farms for the so-called general welfare of all. The legal interest went to the government and the beneficiary interest went to the a cephalous communities (as Ghana’s first socialist President carried out his threat that Chiefs “will run away and leave their sandals behind”).My college lecturer, who today is Ghana’s Minister for Environment, Science and Technology but previously Lands and Forestry Minister said the government became “the absolute landlord and controlled all the management powers including the collection and distribution of revenue to the exclusion of all others”. These vesting powers engulfed all parts of the country with large tracts of lands compulsorily acquired from hereditary owners without compensation paid. Outstanding compensation claims nationwide are estimated at over US$ 9 billion, almost eight times the GDP of the country. The few who manage to get compensation should forget about interests. The law in practice just doesn’t care about that. Today only 25% of total revenue accruing to land goes to the custodians, the traditional authorities “for the maintenance of the stool in keeping with its status”. The rest is shared amongst state agencies most of it going unaccounted for. My lecturer turned bureaucrat today, told us in his widely acclaimed books that “beneficiaries of land allocations by the Lands Commission are mainly senior civil servants, politicians, top army and police officers, contractors, business executives and the land administrators. He goes on to say “since it is precisely the above categories of people who have the means, contacts and power to acquire land on the open market, it is questionable whether the supposedly principle of free allocation of public lands has not outlived its usefulness. Thus upon becoming the Minister for Lands and Forestry, he sought to promote a ‘third way’ between market allocation and governmental appropriation of land. Even though I disagree with his sentiments of a ‘third way’, I cannot but say he had genuine intentions to divest government off the lands, progressively handle the formalization of property but was re-assigned to another ministry because these powerful people he identifies pulled the strings from behind. Yes, land is mighty and under the status quo, not even the President would be ‘spared’ by vested interests if he gets in their way. Although there is a misplaced presumption that markets may fail when it’s allowed to allocate lands that cannot be said of Ghana since we do not as yet have a comprehensive property database devoid of political manipulations and group interests. As Anderson and Leal (1991) argue in Free Market Environmentalism “Where market transactions fail to occur for natural resources and environmental amenities, it is usually because the costs of measuring and monitoring resource use are high. It does not mean government has the answer.” Two years ago, Peruvian economist and Nobel Prize nominee, Hernando De Soto visited Ghana to remind the President and people of Ghana that formalizing property into an integrated, easily accessible whole will unearth the hidden economic value of our “dead capital”. Assuming his definition of property rights was restricted to land, since some critics suggest he failed to define what property rights really meant, our current government that boasts of running a “property owning democracy” should ensure that current efforts at formalizing landed property, are done without any vested interests in mind. The current land sector agencies, some of which are functionally superfluous and duplicator are being pushed into a merger under a new Land Administration Project in order to as it were; make the operations of title identification easier while under one roof. A perfect de Soto recipe since he argues in his famous book The Mystery of Capital “citizens inside and outside the bell jar need government to make a strong case that a redesigned, integrated property system is less costly, more efficient, and better for the nation than existing anarchical arrangements” (p.159) But these are agencies that are independently ill-resourced, loaded with inefficient and corrupt staff who aid multiple sale of land and later preside over their disputes when aboriginal owners surface. This is not a case of caveat emptor (buyer beware), since they cleverly put back in the land records these multiple owners. So, why wouldn’t people resort to voluntary protection of their lands when these illegal arrangements go on? De Soto himself admits that official documents have been used for outright seizure of lawfully acquired property. Yet the same state is the only one that appears to have monopoly over violence against aggressors and non-aggressors (in this vein those who have legitimately acquired lands but have been robbed in the name of compulsory acquisition) and it’s the final arbiter of landed disputes. With an inefficient and corrupt judiciary, one can be sure justice can be bought. An Italian Economist, Enrico Colombatto I encountered at a European Summer University reminded me that property rights are not necessarily destroyed in developing countries. He said property rights even existed under communist Russia but they were shifted amongst powerful persons in society. The current government has attempted to hands off the compulsorily acquired lands through a repeal of the obnoxious Stale Lands Act. But there are more questions; how much of these lands still remain under the ambit of the government? Will all the vested interests mentioned above be willing to hand over ‘their’ developed lands to the rightful owners? Will there be any compensation? In fact, how soon will these lands be given up? Unless the rules of just conduct prevail within our judiciary, we nurture disciplined and motivated law enforcement agencies that know their limits, weed out corrupt land administrators, government genuinely supports the Land Administration Project, recognize the custodial role of the traditional authorities (out of which families and individuals own lands) and tap the wisdom and experiences of private land surveyors we would be far from a comprehensive property database. There would be more mayhem, as each ‘owner’ of a multiple sale property will either directly protect his property or as is in vogue, will result to third party arrangements such as land guards to defend their property. But for the bloodshed, land guards may be necessary evils as the constitution sanctions self-defense to an appreciable degree. An atmosphere where legitimately acquired property is respected is the best possible condition for development. Gradually individuals and families will start owning lands and make investment decisions that will give real meaning to property as a hedge against inflation, and as one of the ways to break the chains of poverty. My only fear is that if we employ the services of the bureaucracy however minute, into formalizing property rights, it will only help it to tax us all into poverty again.
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IMANI Center for Policy& Education