Investors advised to adhere to legal forms of acquiring land

The President of the Ghana Bar Association, Mr Benson Nutsukpui, has urged investors to adhere to strictly going through the legal processes of acquiring lands before undertaking any business ventures in the country.

According to him, going through the laid down procedures to acquire lands in Ghana as investors will help to safeguard them against litigations which only impede their business activities.

Mr Nutsukpui made the call when he interacted with members of the Italian Business Association of Ghana (IBAG), in Accra.

The open forum deliberation was part of the programmes lined up for IBAG's general meeting which was aimed at briefing members on past and upcoming events of the association.

He underscored that the issue of land title registration was a major problem in Ghana due to the non-existence of the proper structured measures to enable people to easily acquire land titles.

The Ghana Bar Association president expressed worry about the inability of government institutions to put measures in place to curb the prevailing difficulty in securing land titles which most foreigners faced in their bid to acquire lands for their proposed business ventures.

Mr Nutsukpui reiterated the need for investors acquiring lands for their projects to undertake a search at both the lands registry and lands commission to ascertain whether their desired land was registered or not.

“I will encourage all investors to take the pain of embarking on a visit to the site for investigation, questioning the neighbours to authenticate the rightful owner of the land before effecting payments,” he added.

For his part, the Vice-President of the Italian Business Association of Ghana, Nii Amaa Ollennu, implored members of the association to acquire lands from the rightful sources to avert paying to imposters.

He said IBAG would continue to support businesses which were directly creating opportunities for the youth of Ghana to be gainfully employed as well as honouring their responsibilities of paying taxes to the government.