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The Dormaa Stool Land Secretariat of the Dormaa Traditional Council in the Bono Region has cautioned estate developers and land owners against wanton destruction of landmarks and boundary lines within the Traditional Area.
Mr Kofi Manu, the Administrator of the Secretariat, said such destruction was a serious and a prosecutorial offence, saying culprits found culpable were liable to a 10-year jail term.
“In fact Section 27 of the land Act 2019, (Act 1036) defines penalties for destruction of boundary lines or boundary marks”, he stated in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on the sidelines of a day’s sensitization forum held at Nkrankrom, near Abesim in the Sunyani Municipality.
The secretariat with support from the Bono and Bono East Regional Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands (OASL), organised the forum aimed at sensitizing about 100 farmers on land use and spatial planning as well as proper demarcation and development.
Mr Manu emphasised that the Act 1036 recommended punitive sanctions against “a person who wilfully or unlawfully destroys, moves or alters a land boundary or survey marks”.
He indicated that as the surrounding farmlands in the area turned into human settlement, any farmer or landowner who engaged in that act of destroying boundary lines committed an offence and would be prosecuted accordingly. Mr Manu added that negative practices such as multiple land sales had contributed to litigations and disputes as well as legal actions.
He said convicts “are liable of summary conviction to a fine of not less than 1000 penalty units or not more than 10,000 penalty units or an imprisonment not less than one year and not more than 10 years or both”.
Mr Manu said the secretariat would organise similar fora at Adantia, Chiraa, and Abesim, all within the Dormaa Traditional Area.
Mrs Georgina Rockson, the Bono and Bono East Regional Officer of the OASL, took the farmers through the land tenure system, land disputes, laws and structures governing land leases. She later told the GNA that proper demarcation of land ensured good town and city planning and prevented haphazard development.
Source: GNA
